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NOTE OF THE AMERICAN PUBLISHERS. 

In presenting to the American public this edition 
of Mr. Wilson's "Abode of Snow," the Publishers 
deem it due to the author to explain that it has been 
reprinted from the original articles as first issued in 
" Blackwood's Magazine," and that it will be found to 
differ in some few points from the volume published 
in Edinburgh. Through a misunderstanding on their 
part as to the plan of Messrs. Blackwood for the is- 
suing of their edition, and the failure to reach them 
of the full information concerning this, they had not 
been made aware that any changes in his Magazine 
material had been contemplated by the author, and 
when word concerning these finally reached them, 
their edition was already stereotyped and ready for 
the printer. 

They have added to this the author's preface, and 
the Map and vignette title from the Edinburgh vol- 
ume, and they plan to incorporate in future editions, 
as far as practicable, such additions to his Magazine 
papers as the author has found desirable. The articles 
in the Magazine give, however, not only the complete 
narrative, but a narrative which, carefully revised up to 
the standard of " Maga," and certainly evincing no 
want of literary finish, forms a work of permanent 
value, possessing an exceptional freshness and novelty, 
and one that will without ^question meet with the 
hearty appreciation of many American readers. 

New York, Sept., 1875. 



THE 



Abode o^ Snow 



Observations on a Tour from Chinese Tibet to 

THE Indian Caucasus, through the 

Upper Valleys of the 

Himalaya 




ANDREW WILSON 

(reprinted from "Blackwood's magazine.") 



^f'^N, 



NEW YORK 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

4TH Ave. & 23D St. 

1875 



IIS48S 



8 7^ 



ly Trawfei 



PREFACE 

TO THE ENGLISH EDITION. 



In the twenty-ninth chapter of this work, I have 
fully explained how the phrase " Abode of Snow " is 
a literal translation of the Sanscrit compound " Hima- 
laya," and therefore forms an appropriate title for a 
work treating of those giant mountains. The Abode 
of Sno'wpar excellence is not in the Himalaya, or even 
in the Arctic region, but (setting Saturn aside) in the 
Antarctic region. Owing to the greater preponde- 
rance of ocean in the southern hemisphere, the great- 
est accumulation of ice is round the South Pole ; and 
hence the not improbable theory that, when the ac- 
cumulation has reached a certain point, the balance 
of the earth must be suddenly destroyed, and this orb 
shall almost instantaneously turn transversely to its 
axis, moving the great oceans, and so producing one 
of those cyclical catastrophes which, there is some 
reason to believe, have before now interfered with 
the development and the civilisation of the human 
race. 

How near such a catastrophe may be, and whether, 
when it occurs, a few just men (and, it is to be hoped, 
women also) will certainly be left in the upper valleys 
of the Himalaya, I am unable to say; but it is well to 



PREFACE. 



know that there is an elevated and habitable region of 
the earth which is likely to be left undepopulated even 
by such an event as that just alluded to. Whether 
humanity will lose or gain by having to begin again 
from the simple starting-point of- " Om mani padme 
haun " {vide Chapter XXXV.) is also a subject on 
which I feel a little uncertain ; but we may at least 
hope that the jewel in the lotus will not be lost ; that 
what has accrued to it from the efforts and the agony 
of so many thousand years, of so many hundreds of 
human generations, may pass over to the inhabitants 
of a newly-formed earth. And when we come to con- 
sider what the grand valuable results of this our awful 
striving, our dread history, have been, most of what 
we are given to boast of will have to be relinquished 
as worthless, and we may, even as Christians, be glad 
to take refuge in the comprehensive Lama prayer, " O 
God, consider the jewel in the lotus. Thy will be 
done." For, however appalling may have been the 
amount of human crime and woe, however pitiable our 
mistakes and ineffectual our struggles, there has ever 
been a jewel in the rank lotus of human life — some- 
thing beautiful in it which is not of it, yet is mysteri- 
ously connected with, and hidden within, it. Viewed 
in this light the Lama prayer has a touching signifi- 
cance, and is not without a great lesson for us all. 

But the Himalaya may have many visitors before 
that other Abode of Snow turns things topsy-turvy, if 
it ever do so ; and these, I hope, may find my book of 
some service. It was not for them, however, that this 
volume was written, but for those who have never 
seen and may never see the Himalaya. I have sought, 
in however imperfect a manner, to enable such readers 



PREFACE. vii 

in some degree to realise what these great mountains 
are — what scenes of beauty and grandeur they present 
— what is the character of the simple people who dwell 
among them — and what are the incidents the traveller 
meets with, his means of conveyance, and his mode of 
life. In attempting this I have had to struggle with 
what a kindly critic has called " the utterly unknown," 
and have been compelled, as a necessary part of the 
enterprise, to make my pages bristle with names and 
other words which are quite unfamiliar, and indeed for 
the most part entirely new, to the ordinary English 
reader — the very individual whose interest I want to 
engage. It has also been necessary to introduce some 
details of physical science, ethnology, archaeology, and 
history ; but these have been subordinated to the gene- 
ral aim of producing an intelligible idea of the region 
described. Perhaps I may be excused for suggesting 
that some little effort on the reader's part is also called 
for, if indeed my labours are of any value, — which I 
am by no means sure of. 

If there were any merit at all in my journey it lay 
only in the condition of body in which I commenced 
it and carried it through, and in the determination 
with which, despite serious discouragement, I pursued 
what appeared to be a desperate remedy. My original 
intention was only to visit Masuri and Simla, and have 
a distant view of the Himalaya ; but the first glimpse 
of the Jumnotri and Gangotri peaks excited longings 
which there was no need to restrain, and I soon per- 
ceived that the air of the hill-stations could be of no 
use to me. So I set off from Simla, determined above 
all things to keep as high up as I could, and to have a 
snowy range between me and the Indian monsoon, 



viii PREFACE. 

and then, so far as consonant with that, to visit as 
many places of interest as possible. It probably 
would have been better had I been able to take more 
notes on the way ; but the great fatigue of the jour- 
ney, and the strain arising from my being alone, were 
rather too much for me ; and sometimes, for several 
days at a time, I could do no more than note down 
the name of the village where we camped, and the 
temperature at day-break. 

There are many subjects, especially relating to the 
latter part of my journey, on which I wished to write 
at length, but found it inexpedient to do so in order 
not longer to delay the publication of this volume. As 
it is, I feel deeply indebted for its having been written 
at all to the encouragement, consideration, and ad- 
vice of Mr. Blackwood, the Editor of the famous 
Magazine which bears his name, and in which a great 
part, but not the whole, of this narrative originally 
appeared. From the outset he sympathised warmly 
with my plan, and throughout he never failed to 
cheer my flagging spirits with generous praise, not to 
speak of other encouragement. Then he gave me a 
great deal of admirable advice. There is nothing that 
is commoner in this world than advice— nothing that 
is showered down upon one with more liberal profu- 
sion ; but there is nothing rarer than judicious, useful 
advice, the first condition of which is sympathetic 
appreciation of what one would be at ; and it was this 
invaluable kind of advice which Mr. Blackwood freely 
tendered, pointing out where the treatment of my 
Subject required expansion, or aiding me by his 
knowledge of the world and profoundly appreciative 
literary taste. I am charmed to find that the lotus of 



« 

PREFACE. vs. 



literature contains such a jewel ; and I must say, also, 
that both the Messrs. Blackwood did me essential, 
service by the consideration they displayed when I 
sent in my manuscript at unreasonable times, or al- 
tered proofs unmercifully at the last moment. Prince 
Bismarck said to Count Arnim that the business of the 
Prussian Foreign Office could not be carried on if 
every Embassy were to conduct itself in the way that 
of Paris did ; and I am sure the business of Maga 
could not be carried on at all if all its contributors 
were to try its patience as I did. 

I was much indebted also to an old friend — a genius 
loci and yet a man of European celebrity — who at the 
commencement of the appearance of my articles wrote 
to me in terms of the warmest encouragement. It may 
be that the favour with which the original articles ap- 
pear to have been received may stand in the way of 
success now that they are reproduced in book-form ; 
so I may mention that, though long passages have 
not been added to this reprint, yet very many short 
ones have ; the interstices, so to speak, have been 
filled up ; greater accuracy has been attained ; and the 
whole work has been recast, and that into a form 
which, I venture to believe, will make it more accept- 
able to all readers; and I am led to hope that this 
may be so, among other reasons, by the fact that an 
American publishing house, G. P. Putman's Sons, 
New York, has already prepared stereotyped plates 
of my book, with a view to republication across the 
Atlantic. 

I feel some regret at not having been able either to 
repress my outbreaks on the difficult subject of the 
policy which ought to be pursued in governing India, 



X Preface, 



or to enter into the question in a fuller and more 
satisfactory manner than I have done ; but while that 
subject la)f beyond the proper scope of this work, it 
was one which the incidents of my journey naturally 
led me incidentally to refer to. I shall now only 
express my profound conviction, that if India were 
more directly governed with an enlightened view to 
our own national interests than it is at present, it 
wouid be far better for the people of India ; that it is 
the English in India, far more than the Bengal ryot, 
the educated native, or the Indian Prince, who have 
reason to complain of the British Raj ; and that, under 
a superficial appearance of contentment and progress, 
there are gathering forces, mostly powerless for good, 
which may at any moment break forth with destruc- 
tive fury, and are certain to do so whenever the ener- 
gies of this country are more fully occupied else- 
where. 

It may be fancied that some of my descriptions of 
what I encountered among the Himalaya are some- 
what exaggerated, and especially, I understand, the 
achievements of the little pony which carried me over 
the great Shigri glacier. A lady writing to me on 
this subject remarks: "Had I not known you to be 
scrupulously .truthful — in fact, fastidiously careful in 
the use of language, lest it might convey a shade of 
meaning beyond the thought, opinion, or fact, you 
wished to express — I might have regarded some of 
your descriptions as exaggerated ; but I consider accu- 
racy, both verbal (that is, in the use of words) and in 
the statement of facts, to be one of your strong points 
— barring and excepting in the making of promises 
with respect to letter- writing." So I have carefully 



PREFACE. xi 

reconsidered everything which might appear to bear 
the marks of exaggeration, and, while finding almost 
nothing to alter on that ground, have thought it best 
to say nothing about one or two incidents which 
might really appear incredible. I have only to add 
on this subject, that the state of Himalayan paths 
differs somewhat from year to year, according to the 
amount of labour expended upon them, and the land- 
slips which occur. 

The map which accompanies this volume has been 
based on a section of a large school-map of India by 
the Rev. J. Barton, published under the direction of 
Committees of the Society for promoting Christian 
Knowledge and of the National Society. Mr. Trelaw- 
ney Saunders, the Geographer to the East India Office, 
has given this school-map his valuable aid in bringing 
out clearly the various mountain ranges to the north 
of India ; and I found, after examining many maps, 
that no other which I could avail myself of would 
serve so well as the basis of a small map which would 
present at a glance the relative positions of the Panjab 
plain, the Western Himalaya, the Hindu Kilsh, and 
the Karakorum Mountains. It seemed to me of much 
more importance to convey a general idea of that vast 
and little-known district of mountainous country than 
to present a detailed plan of my own route ; for only 
those who are in, or are about to enter, the districts I 
traversed, will have any object in following me from 
stage to stage ; and they can do so much better in 
Major Montgomerie's route-map and the five mile to 
the inch sheets of the Trigonometrical Survey, than 
in any map which it would be advisable for me to 
prepare. At the same time, I have marked my route 



xii PREFACE. 

carefully in the map which I present ; I have added 
to it a large number of places which I visited, and 
have altered the spelling in accordance with that of 
my book. 

That matter of spelling has caused no little trouble. 
It may not be generally known in this country that 
some years ago the Indian Government determined 
that Indian names should be spelt, at least in all 
official documents and publications, on one system. 
The system is based on the Jonesian-Wilsonian system 
of transliteration, as modified by the, oriental societies, 
and has further been modified for practical purposes 
by Dr. W. W. Hunter, the head of the Indian Statis- 
tical Department. It partakes of the nature of a com- 
promise, for accents are only used when specially 
necessary, and not as marking intonation, but only as 
indicating different vowel-sounds ; and in the lists 
drawn up by Dr. Hunter they are used very sparingly, 
and are omitted in some cases where they might; have 
been added with advantage. I have followed these 
official lists in most instances, and the simple rules to 
be borne in mind in order to render their system of 
spelling intelligible are that, — 

1. The long d sounds broadly, as in almond. 

2. The short a without an accent, has usually some- 
what of a u sound, as the a in rural. 

3. The % with an accent is like ee, or the i in ravine. 

4. The u with an accent is like 00, or the u in bull. 

5. The e has a broad sound, as the a in dare. 

6. The sounds openly, as in note. 

7. The at sounds as in- aisle, or the / in high. 

8. The ail sounds like oit in cloud. 

The most striking peculiarities of this system are 



PREFACE. xiii 

the substitution of u for oo, of % for ee, and the expres- 
sion of broad a by a. It totally ignores the genius of 
the English language, and may be considered as an- 
other instance of that subjection of England to India 
which has been going on of late years. Another 
objection to it is, that it is not thoroughgoing, and is 
apt to land the a and the u sounds in hopeless confu- 
sion ; while a third is, that it is liable to mislead from 
its employment of accents in a different sense from 
that which they have, except incidentally, in European 
languages. But I doubt not these objections have 
been duly considered by the promoters of the system, 
and that they have followed the plan which seemed to 
them best fitted to procure uniformity in the spelling 
of Indian names, which is an end of so great impor- 
tance that I have deemed it right to follow the Govern- 
ment system of spelling, but not as a very advanced 
or always strictly accurate disciple. I am afraid an 
accent here and there has got on the wrong letter, and 
I have sometimes continued the use of double letters; 
but, in truth, to carry out this system with perfect 
accuracy one would require not only to have the 
names before one written in an Indo-Aryan language, 
but also to be in the habit of dealing with them in 
such a language. Suffice that I have sacrificed my 
own comfort, if not also that of my readers, on the 
Indian Government's linguistic altar. As one of the 
first to do so in this country, I trust I may be excused 
if my steps have occasionally tripped. When publish- 
ing in the Magazine I used the word " Himaliya," but 
that was only in order to break the usual custom of 
pronouncing it " Himmalaya," and now. return to 
what is the more strictly accurate form. 



xiv PREFACE. 

One word more, and I have done. Like many other 
men, I have written hundreds — I may say thousands 
— of more or less insignificant articles in newspapers 
and periodicals ; but, like the vast majority of my fel- 
low-labourers in that department of literature, I have 
sought to keep back my name rather than to thrust it 
obtrusively before the public in connection with pro- 
ductions which, however good or bad of their kind, 
had no individuality or importance sufficient to war- 
rant their being connected with any particular author. 
That is the usual feeling of public writers in this 
country ; but there is always some one insensible to it. 
A few months ago one of those candid friends who are 
the gentian and rhubarb of life, remarked to me : 
" What a stupid article that is on the CUTTLE-FISH 

which you have in ! I wonder you put your 

name to it." Now the cuttle-fish is a denizen of the 
ocean with which I am well acquainted, from its 
toughness as an article of diet, it having been the 
habit of my Hong-Kong butler to give me a curry of 
it whenever he was displeased with me, adding, when 
he saw my frown, the dubious consolation : " Eh ! No 
likey? I tinkee he makee you likey to-mollow (to- 
morrow) cully too muchee." But to write articles on 
the cuttle-fish was, I knew, out of my line; and I 
was shocked at having my name pointed out to me, 
printed in full, at the bottom of such an article. At 
first I cherished the hope that this was the work of 
some practical humourist ; but found on inquiry, that 
this alter ego, the cuttle-fish A. W., was a sad reality ; 
that he had published several articles of the same 
kind, and had as much title as myself to the name 
lae byars. I know how vain it is to hope that any 



PREFACE. XV 

pushing young Scotchman will consent to preach be- 
hind a screen if he has any opportunity of doing so in 
front of it; therefore I address no remonstrance or 
request to the ichthyologist himself. But, would not 
some Scotch University — say Aberdeen or Glasgow — 
have the goodness to make a distinction between us 
by conferring upon him the degree of D.D., LL.D,, 
or whatever other high academical distinction his ar- 
duous researches, into the character of the cuttle-fish 
may justify? 

London, July, 1875. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER L 

TO THE HEIGHTS . . . • J tf « ft 

CHAPTER IL 

SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES • • « t ■ ^6 

CHAPTER III. 

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH « 4 « JS 

CHAPTER IV. 

CHINESE TARTARS ...•••• 131 

CHAPTER V 

HANGRANG, SPITI, AND TIBETAN POLYANDRY . • • I59 

CHAPTER VI. 

SHIGRI AND ITS GLACIERS — THE ALPS AND HImAlIYA . I95 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VII. 

ZANSKAR a • • • • ■ t.a 230 

CHAPTER VIII. 

KASHMIR , » • . .'• « • 278 

CHAPTER IX. 

SCENES IN KASHMIR ••••«• S'^ 

CHAPTER X. 

THE AFGHAN BORDER . . . • • • 34° 



k 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



CHAPTER I. 

TO THE HEIGHTS. 

I HAVE heard of an American backwoodsman who, on 
finding some people camping about twenty miles from 
his log-cabin, rushed back in consternation to his wife 
and exclaimed, " Pack thee up, Martha — pack thee up ; 
it's getting altogether too crowded hereabouts." The 
annoyance which this worthy complained of is very 
generally felt at present ; and, go almost where he may, 
the lover of peace and solitude will soon have reason to 
complain that the country round him is becoming " alto- 
gether too crowded." As for the enterprising and ex- 
ploring traveller, who desires to make a reputation for 
himself by his explorations, his case is even worse. 
Kafiristan, Chinese Tibet, and the very centre of Africa, 
indeed remain for him ; but, wherever he may go, he 
cannot escape the painful conviction that his task will 
ere long be trodden ground, and that the special corre- 
spondent, the trained reporter, wnll soon try to obliterate 
his footsteps. It was not so in older times. The man 
who went out to see a strange country, if he were for- 
tunate enough to return to his friends alive, became 
an authority on that country to the day of his death, 

A 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



and continued so for generations afterwards, if he had 
only used his wits well. An accurate description of a 
country usually stood good for a century or two, at 
least, and for that period there was no one to dispute it ; 
but the Khiva of 1872 is fundamentally different from 
the Khiva of 1874; and could we stand to-day where 
Speke stood sublimely alone a few years ago at Mur- 
chison Falls, when he was accomplishing the heroic 
feat of passing (for the first time in authentic history) 
from Zanzibar to Cairo, through the ground where the 
Nile unquestionably takes its rise, we should probably 
see an English steamboat, with Colonel Gordon on 
board, moving over the waters of Lake Victoria Nyanza. 
For the change in the relations of one country with 
another, which has been effected by steam as a means 
of propulsion, is of a most radical kind ; and it proceeds 
so rapidly, that by the time the little girls at our knees 
are grandmothers, and have been fired with that noble 
ambition to see the world which possesses the old ladies 
of our own day, it will be only a question of money and 
choice with them, as to having a cruise upon the lakes 
of Central Africa, or going to reason with the Grand 
Lama of Tibet upon the subject of polyandry. Any 
one walking along the Strand may notice advertise- 
ments of " Gaze's annual tour to Jerusalem, Damascus, 
Nineveh, Babylon, the Garden of Eden," &c., &c. No 
doubt that sort of thing will receive a check occasion- 
ally ; there has been a refreshing recurrence, within the 
last two months, of brigandage in Sicily and the Italian 
peninsula, which may serve to create a vacuum for the 
meditative traveller ; and if a party of Cook's tourists 
were to fall into the hands of Persian or Kurdish 
banditti, the unspeakable consequences would probably 
put a stop to excursions to the Garden of Pklen for 
some time to come ; but still the process would go 



TO THE HEIGHTS. 



on, of bringing- together the ends of the earth, and of 
making the remotest countries familiar ground. 

Such a process, however, will always leave room for 
books of travel by the i&w who are specially qualified 
either to understand nature or describe mankind; and 
there are regions of the world, the natural conformation 
of which will continue to exclude ordinary travellers, 
until we have overcome the difficulty of flying through 
the air. Especially are such regions to be found in the 
Himaliya — which, according to the Sanscrit, literally 
means " The Abode of Snow " — and indeed in the whole 
of that enormous mass of mountains which really 
stretches across Asia and Europe, from the China Sea 
to the Atlantic, and to which Arab geographers have 
given the expressive title of " The Stony Girdle of the 
Earth." It is to thQ loftiest valleys, and almost the 
highest peaks of that range that, in this and two or 
three succeeding chapters, I would conduct my readers 
from the burning plains of India, in the hope of finding 
themes of interest, if not many matters of absolute 
novelty. I have had the privilege of discoursing from 
and on many mountains — mountains in Switzerland 
and Beloochistan, China and Japan — and would now 
speak 

" Of vales more wild and mountains more sublime." 

Often, of late years, when thinking of again writing 
and describing new scenes, the lines have recurrred 
to me with painful force, which the dying Magician 
of the North wrote in pencil by Tweedside — 

*' How shall the wai-ped and broken board 
Endure to bear the painter's dye? 
The harp -with strained and tuneless chord, 
How to the minstrel's skill reply?" 

But the grandest mountains of the world, which have 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



restored something of former strength, may perhaps 
suggest thoughts of interest, despite the past death- 
in-hfe of an invalid in the tropics. There is a Hly {F. 
cordatd) which rarely blossoms in India, unless watered 
with ice-water, which restores its vigour, and makes it 
flower. So the Englishman, whose frame withers and 
strength departs in the golden sunlight but oppressive 
air of India, finds new vigour and fresh thought and 
feeling among the snows and glaciers of the Himaliya. 
If the reader will come with me there, and rest under 
the lofty deodar-tree, I promise him he will find no 
enemy but winter and rough weather, and perhaps we 
may discourse not altogether unprofitably under the 
shadow of those lofty snowy peaks, which still continue 

"By the flight 
Of sad mortahty's earth-suUymg wing, 
Unswept, unstained." 

The change in modern travel has brought the most 
interesting, and even the wildest, parts of India within 
easy reach for our countrymen. Bishop Heber mentions 
in his Journal that he knew of only two Englishmen — 
Lord Valencia and Mr Hyde — who had visited India 
from motives of science or curiosity since the country 
"came into our possession. Even thirty years ago such 
visits were unknown ; and the present Lord Derby was 
about the first young Englishman who made our Indian 
Em.pire a part of the grand tour. Nowadays, old ladies 
of seventy, who had scarcely ever left Britain before, 
are to he met with on the spurs of the Himaliya ; and 
we are conveyed rapidly and easily over vast stretches 
of burning land, which, a {t.v^ years ago, presented for- 
midable obstacles to even the most eager traveller. On 
the great routes over the vast plains of Hindusthan 
there is no necessity now for riding twenty miles a day 
from bungalow to bungalow, or rolling tediously in a 



TO THE HEIGHTS. 5 

"palki gharri" over the interminable Grand Trunk Road. 
Even in a well-cushioned comfortable railway apartment 
it is somewhat trying to shoot through the blinding sun- 
light and golden dust of an Indian plain ; and knowing 
ones are to be seen in such circumstances expending 
their ice and soda-water upon the towels which they 
have wrapped round their heads. But we are compelled 
to have recourse to such measures only in the trying 
transition periods between the hot and cold seasons ; 
because, when the heat is at its greatest, artificially- 
cooled carriages are provided for first-class passengers. 
Three days from Bombay and twenty pounds convey- 
ance expenses will land the traveller at Masuri (Mus- 
sooree),* on the outer range of the Himaliya ; and yet, 
if he chooses to halt at various places by the way, 
a single step almost will take him into some of the 
wildest jungle and mountain scenery of India, 'among 



* The spelling of Indian names is at present in a transition state, though 
so much has been done to reduce it to one common standard that it is 
expedient to follow that standard now, which is the official system of spell- 
ing adopted by the Indian Government, and usually followed by Dr Keith 
Johnston in his valuable maps. That system partakes of the nature of a 
compromise, for accents are only used when specially necessary ; and in 
the lists drawn up by Dr W. W. Hunter they are used very sparingly, and 
are omitted in some cases where they miglit have been added with advan- 
tage. I have followed these official lists in almost every instance, except in 
using the word " Himaliya ; " and the simple rules to be borne in mind in 
order to render their system of spelling intelligible are that — 

1. The long a sounds broadl)^, as in almond. 

2. The short a without an accent, has usually somewhat of a « sound, 
as the a in rural. 

3. The / with an accent is like ee, or the i in ravine. 

4. The ?/ with an accent is like 00, or the it in bull. 

5. The e has a broad sound, as the a in dare. 

6. The o sounds openly as in note. 

7. The ai sounds as in aisle,^r the i in high. 

8. The au sounds like ou in cloud. 



6 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

the most primitive tribes, and to the haunts of wild ani- 
mals of the most unamiable kind. Had the Bishop- 
poet lived now, he might have sung, with much more 
truth than he did fifty years ago — 

" Thy towers, they say, gleam fair, Bombay, 
Across the dark-blue sea ;" 

for the schemes of Sir Bartle Frere, energetically car- 
ried oat by his successor, Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, have 
given that city the most imposing public buildings to be 
found in the East — if we except some of the Moham- 
medan mosques, with the palaces and tombs (for these, 
too, are public buildings) of the Mogul Emperors — and in 
other ways, also, have made it worthy of its natural 
situation, and a splendid gate of entrance to our Indian 
Empire. But half-Europeanised as the capital of Wes- 
tern India is, within ten miles of it, in the island of Sal- 
sette, at the little-visited Buddhist caves of Kanhari, the 
traveller will find not only a long series of ancient richly- 
sculptured cave-temples and monastic retreats, but also 
the most savage specimens of animal and vegetable life, 
in a thick jungle which often seems alive with monkeys, 
and where, if he only remains over night, he would have 
a very good chance of attracting the attention of the 
most ferocious denizen of the Indian forest. Though the 
locomotive bears him swiftly and smoothly up the in- 
clines of the Thull Ghaut, instead of his having to cross 
the Sahyadri range by a bridle-path, or be dragged 
painfully by tortured bullocks at the rate of half a mile 
an hour, as was the case only a few years ago; yet he 
has only to stop at the picturesquely-situated bungalow 
at Egutpoora, and wander a little way along the edge of 
the great bounding wall of the Deccan, in order to look 
down immense precipices of columnar basalt, and see 
huge rock-snakes sunning themselves upon the bastions 



TO THE HEIGHTS. 



of old Mardtha forts, and be startled by the booming cry 
of the Entelius monkey, or by coming on the footprints of 
a leopard or a tiger. And it may not be amiss, when 
writing of the Western Ghauts, to point out the remark- 
able parallelism, which has not before been noted, 
between these mountains and the Himaliya, for it may 
serve to make the contour of both ranges easily intel- 
ligible. Both are immense bounding walls ; the one to 
the elevated plains of the Deccan, and the other to the 
still more elevated tableland of Central Asia. Carry- 
ing out this parallel, the Narbada (Nerbudda) will be 
found to occupy very much the same position as the 
Indus, the Sutlej as the Tapti, and the Godaveri as the 
Brahmaputra. All have their rise high up on their 
respective tablelands ; some branches of the Godaveri 
rise close to the sources of the Narbada, just as the Indus 
and the Brahmaputra have their origin somewhere about 
Lake Manasarovvar ; and yet the former rivers fall into 
the sea on opposite sides of the Indian peninsula, just as 
the two latter do. So, in like manner, the Tapti has its 
origin near that of the Narbada, as the Sutlej rises 
close to the Indus ; and if we can trust the Sind tradi- 
tion, which represents the upper part of the Arabian Sea 
as having once been dry land, there may have been 
a time within the human era when the Tapti flowed into 
the Narbada, as the Sutlej does into the Indus some way 
above the sea. There is no mountain group in the High- 
lands of Central India where the three southern rivers 
rise quite so close together as do the three northern 
rivers from the lofty and inaccessible Tibetan Kailas, but 
still there is a great similarity in their relative positions ; 
and it is only when we think of the Sahyadri and Hima- 
liya as boundary walls that we can understand their 
relations to the tableland behind them, and their terrific 
fall to the low-lying land in front. 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



But there is no snow on the Sahyadri mountains, so 
we must hurry on past Nasik, where there is a holy city 
scarcely less sacred than Benares in the estimation of 
the Hindus ; so holy is it, that the mere mention of the 
river on which it stands is supposed to procure the for- 
giveness of sins ; and the banks of this river are covered 
by as picturesque ghauts and temples as those of the 
Gangetic city. No traveller should omit stopping at 
Nandgaum, in order to pay a visit to the immense series 
of carved hills, of rock-temples and sculptured caves, 
which make EUora by far the most wonderful and instruc- 
tive place in India. If we have to diverge from the rail- 
way line again into the upper Tapti valley, we shall find 
that the basins of rich and once cultivated soil are covered 
by dense jungle of grass and bamboo, full of tiger, bear, 
bison, sambar and spotted deer, and inhabited, here and 
there, by Kurkies and other aboriginal tribes, but having 
a deadly climate during great part of the year. Ap- 
proaching Khandwa on the railway, we see the ancient 
and famous fort of Asirghar in the distance, rising 850 
feet above the plain, and 23CO feet above the sea ; and 
Khandwa itself, which has been built with the stones 
from an old Jain town, is important now as a place where 
the whole traffic of Central India to Bombay meets, and 
as one terminus of a branch line of rail which takes into 
the great native state of India, and the capital of the 
famous Holkar. Here we enter into the Narbada valley, 
and are soon between two notable ranges of mountains, 
the Satpura and the Vindhya. Ten }'ears ago the Cen- 
tral Provinces were described as " for the most part a 
terra incognita; " and, though now well Icnown, the Pligh- 
lands of Central India present abundance of the densest 
jungle, full of the wildest animals and the most primitive 
of men. In the early dawn, as the railway train rushes 
along through the cool but mild air, are seen to the right 



rO THE HEIGHTS. 



an irregular line of picturesque mountains covered with 
thick jungle to their summits ; and the Englishman unac- 
customed to India, who leaves the railway and goes into 
them, will find himself as much out of his reckoning as 
if he threw himself overboard a Red Sea steamer and 
made for the Arabian coast. The Narbada, which is the 
boundary between the Deccan and Hindusthan proper, 
rises at Amartank, at the height of 5000 feet, in the 
dominions of the painted Rajah of Rewa, who was cer- 
tainly the most picturesque figure in the great Bombay 
durbar two years ago. It enters the Gulf of Bombay at 
the cotton town of Bharuch or Broach, and to the Eng- 
lish merchant is almost the most important of the Indian 
rivers. It is supposed that, in prehistoric times, its valley 
must have been a series of great lakes, which are now 
filled by alluvial deposits of a recent epoch ; and the 
discovery of flint implements in its alluvium, by the late 
Lieutenant Downing Sweeney, has indicated it as an 
important field for the researches of the archaeologist. 
Though its upper course is tumultuous enough, in deep 
clefts through marble rock, and falling in cascades over 
high ledges, it soon reaches a rich broad valley, con- 
taining iron and coal, which is one of the largest grana- 
ries, and is the greatest cotton field of India. Through 
that valley it runs, a broad yellow strip of sand and 
shinglej and it has altogether a course of about 800 
miles, chiefly on a basalt bed, through a series of rocky 
clefts and valley basins. 

If the traveller has come straight from Bomba}', he 
will feel inclined to halt at Jabalpur (Jubbulpore) after 
hi,s ride of twenty-six hours ; but if his stay there be 
only for a day, he will do well, after seeing the novelty 
of a Thug school of industry, to hire a horse-carriage, 
and drive on about ten miles to the famous and won- 
derful Marble Rocks, where he Avill find a beautifully- 



lo THE ABODE OF SNOV/. 

situated bungalow for travellers, and an old but by no 
means worn-out Khansamah, who will cook for him a 
less pretentious, but probably as good a dinner as he 
would find in the hotels of Jabalpiir. The place I 
speak of presents one of those enchanting scenes 
which remain for ever vivid in the memory. The 
Narbada there becomes pent up among rocks, and 
falls over a ledge about thirty feet high, and then 
flows for about two miles through a deep chasm below 
the surface of the surrounding countr}^, cut through 
basalt and marble, but chiefly through the latter. 
The stream above its fall has a breadth of ico yards, but 
in the chasm of only about 20 yards ; and the glittering 
cliffs of white marble which rise above it are from 80 to 
120 feet high, and are composed of a dolomite and 
magnesian limestone. Such, briefly stated, are the con- 
stituents of the. scene, but they are insufficient to explain 
its weird charm. I went up between the Marble Rocks 
in the early morn'ng in a boat, by moonlight, and floated 
down in sunlight ; and as we moved slowly up that 
romantic chasm, the drip of water from the paddles, and 
the wash of the stream, only showed how deep the silence 
was. A tiger had been doing some devastation in the 
neighbourhood, and one of the boatmen whispered that 
we might have a chance of seeing it come down to drink 
at the entrance of the cleft, or moving along the rocks 
• above, which of course made the position more interest- 
ing. The marble walls on one side, which sparkled like 
silver in the moonlight, reflected so white a radiance as 
almost to illumine the shadow of the opposite cliff's; 
but the stream itself lay in deeper shadow, with here 
and there shafts of dazzling light falling upon it; and 
above, the moonbeams had woven in the air a silvery 
veil, through which even the largest stars shone only 
dimlv. It did not look at all like a scene on earth, but 



TO THE HEIGHTS. 



rather as if we were entering the portals of another world. 
Coniing down in the brilliant sunlight, the chasm ap- 
peared less weird but hardly less extraordinary. Large 
fish began to leap at the dragon-flies which skimmed 
over the surface of the water ; monke3'S ran along the 
banks above, and chattered angrily at us ; many pea- 
cocks also appeared above, uttering their harsh cries ; 
and the large bees' nests which hung every here and 
there from the Marble Rocks, began to show unpleasant 
symptoms of life. Let every visitor to this place beware 
how he disturbs these ferocious and reckless insects. 
They are very large; their sting is very poisonous, and 
they display a fury and determination in resenting any 
interference, which makes them most formidable enemies. 
Two Englishmen, I was told, were once floating through 
the chasm, when a ball, which one of them had fired at 
a peacock, slanted off" from the rock and unfortunately 
happened to hit one of these nests. The consequence 
was, that the bees immediately swarmed about the boat, 
and stung one of its occupants, who was unable to swim, 
so severely that he died from the effects. His com- 
panion leaped into the stream and floated down with it; 
but even then a cloud of bees followed him for a long 
way, watching his movements, and immediately attacked 
his face and every portion of his body which appeared 
for an instant above the surface of the water. 

Allahabad, the capital of the North- West Provinces, 
has become one of the most important places in Lidia 
from its position at the junction of two mighty rivers, 
and as the centre of the railway communication between 
Bombay, Calcutta, and the Panjab. It possesses a news- 
paper, the Pioneer, which obtained great popularity all 
over Lidia from the humour of its late editor, the Rev. 
Julian Robinson ; and while its past is interesting from 
its connection with the Lidian Mutiny and the stemming 



>2 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

of the tide of mutiny, the archaeologist will find in it 
remains which are of great importance for the elucida- 
tion of Indian antiquity. English travellers will also 
find there the residence of the cotton commissioner, Mr 
Rivett-Carnac, who is so well known by his great efforts 
to enable India to meet the demands of Great Britain for 
its products, by his activity in collecting information 
of all kinds, and his extreme readiness in imparting it to 
those who are happy enough to come in contact with him. 
But we must proceed towards the Himaliya ; and in 
order to do so at once, I shall say nothing here of Cawn- 
pore and Lucknow,* Delhi and Agra. They have been 
admirably described by several modern writers, but no 
description can give an adequate idea of the mournful 
interest excited by a visit to the two former, or of the 
dazzling beauty of the Taj Mahal and the Pearl Mosque 
of Agra. I shall only remark, that those who visit the 
scenes of the Indian Mutiny may do well to inquire for 
themselves into the true history of that dreadful out- 
break, and not allow themselves to be deceived by the 
palliating veil which such amiable writers as the late Dr 
Norman Macleod have drawn over it. That history 
has never been written ; and I was assured by one of 
the special commissioners who went up with the first 
relieving force from Allahabad, that the Government 
interfered to prevent his publishing an account of it, 
drawn from the sworn depositions which had been made 
before him. It is right that the Angel of Mercy should 
bend over the well at Cawnpore, and flowers spring 
from the shattered walls- of the Residency at Lucknow; 
but the lessons of the Mutiny are likely to be in great 
part lost, if its unprovoked atrocities are to be concealed 



* These are two names, the spelHng of which should have been left un- 
alteied, even according to the Government's own views. 



TO THE HEIGHTS. 13 

in the darkness to which every humane heart must desire 
to relegate them. 

Here, in the valley of the Ganges, we may be said to 
be at the base of the Himaliya, though even from near 
points of view they are not visible through the golden- 
dust haze of an Indian March. This valley runs parallel 
with the Stony Girdle for 1200 miles, itself varying from 
80 miles in breadth at Monghir to 200 at Agra, and is 
so flat as to suggest rather an immensely long strip of 
plain than anything like a valley. Those who do not 
think of venturing into the high and interior Himaliya, 
but yet wish to have something like a near view of the 
highest and grandest mountains in the world, will of 
course direct their steps to one or more of the hill- 
stations on its southern or south-western front, and each 
of the more important of these is a place of departure 
for the wilder and more inaccessible country behind. 
A brief glance at these latter will serve to expose the 
points from which the most interesting parts of the 
Himaliya are accessible. 

To begin from the east, Darjiling (Darjeeling) is the 
great sanitarium for Bengal, and is usually the residence, 
for some portion of the year, of the Lieutenant-Governor 
of that province, and of his chief officers. A railway is 
in course of construction, or is to be constructed, which 
will greatly facilitate access to it. As it is, we have to 
go eleven hours by rail from Calcutta, four hours in a 
river steamboat, 124 miles in a dak gharri, bullock shig- 
ram, or mail-cart, then fourteen miles on horseback, or 
in a palanquin to the foot of the hills, and by similar 
means of carriage up to the top of them, in order to 
reach Darjiling. In the rains this is a horrible journey 
to make ; and, except in the very hot season, the 
miasma of the Terai, or jungle forest between Siligari 
and Pankabarri, is so deadly that the traveller is always 



14 THE ABODE OF SNO W. 

advised to pass it by daylight — a proposal which in all 
probability he will be glad to accede to, unless familiarity 
with tigers and wild elephants has bred in him a due 
contempt for such road-fellows. This makes Darjiling 
not a very easy place to get at, and it has the additional 
disadvantage of being exceedingly wet and cold during 
the south-west monsoon — that is to say, from any time 
in the end of June till the beginning of October ; but, 
notwithstanding these drawbacks, it recommends itself 
to the tourist who does not care to attempt tent-life in 
the mountains, on account of its magnificent view of the 
Himaliya, and its vicinity to the very highest peaks of 
that mighty range. Gaurisankar, or Mount Everest, the 
culminating point of the earth's surface, and which rises 
to the height of 29,002 feet above the level of the sea, 
is in Nepal, and is not visible from the hill-station we 
speak of ; but it can be seen, when weather allows, from 
an elevation only a day or two's journey from Darjiling. 
Kanchinjanga in Sikkim, however, which is the second 
highest peak in the world, and rises to the height of 
28,150 feet, is visible from Darjiling; and no general 
view of the Himaliya is finer, more characteristic, or 
more impressive, than that- which we may have from the 
Cutcherry hill at Darjiling, looking over dark range 
after range of hills up to the eternal snows of Kanchin- 
janga, and the long line of its attendant monarchs of 
mountains. Unfortunately, Gaurisankar, the loftiest 
mountain of all, is out of the reach of nearly all tra- 
vellers, owing to our weakness in allowing Nepal to ex- 
clude Englishmen from its territory ; but if any one is 
very anxious to try Chinese Tibet, he will find one of 
the doors into it by going up from Darjiling through the 
protected state of Sikkim ; but whether the door will 
open at his request is quite another matter, and if he 
kicks at it, he is likely to find himself suddenly going 



TO THE HEIGHTS. 15 



down the mountains considerably faster than he went 
up them. Verbiun sat sapieniibus ; but if one could only 
get through this door, it is a very short way from it to 
Lassa, the capital of Tibet, and the residence of the 
Grand Lama, which, possibly, is the reason why it is 
kept so strictly guarded. 

Gaurisankar, and the highest peaks of the Himaliya, 
are on the border between Nepal and Tibet, and form a 
group somewhat obtruding from the line of the main 
range. It is provoking that the weak foreign policy of 
the Indian Government — a policy, however, which has 
been very much forced upon it from home — should 
allow the Nepalese to exclude English travellers from 
theii' territory, while at the same time we treat the 
former as friendly allies, and heap honours upon Jung 
Bahadur. To take such a line is always regarded in the 
East as a proof of weakness, which indeed it is ; and the 
best commentary upon its effects is the belief, every- 
where prevalent in India, that the Nana Sahib is, or for 
long has been, the protected guest of the Court of Kat- 
mandu. This policy places about 500 miles of the 
Himaliya out of the reach of the English traveller, 
though these 500 miles contain the culminating point of 
the whole range, the most splendid jewel in the Stony 
Girdle of the Earth. There is another stretch of 500 
miles to the east of Nepal, occupied by Bhotan, in which 
also no European can travel, owing to the character of 
the inhabitants and of the Government ; so that it is 
only in the little narrowed strip of Sikkim that one can 
get up at all to the main range of the eastern Himaliya ; 
and thus we are practically shut out from a thousand 
miles of the Himaliya — from a thousand miles of the 
noblest mountains in the world, overlooking the Gangetic 
valley and the conquered provinces of British India. 
It follows from this, that the traveller who wishes to 



l6 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

enter among these giant mountains, and is not content 
with a view of them, such as we have of the Oberland 
Alps from the summit of the Righi, must of necessity 
betake himself to the western Himaliya. It is true he 
may. go up the Sikkim valley from Darjiling to the foot 
of Kanchinjanga, but he is then confined to the narrow 
gorges of the Testa and the Ranjit. Moreover, it is only 
in summer that one can travel among the higher ranges, 
and in summer, Sikkim is exposed to almost the full 
force of the Indian monsoon, which rages up to the 
snows of Kanchinjanga with a saturated atmosphere and 
the densest fogs. Pedestrianism and tent-travelling in 
such circumstances are almost out of the question ; and 
as it is only when the traveller can get a snowy range 
between himself and the Indian monsoon that he can 
travel Avith any comfort, or even with safety, among the 
Himaliya in summer, he must perforce betake himself to 
their western section, if he desires to make acquaintance 
with the interior and higher portions of that mighty 
range. 

Passing, then, over the 500 miles of Nepal, and casting 
one longing look in the direction of Gaurisankar, we 
come to Naini Tal or Nyni Tal, which is the sanitarium 
of the North-West Provinces, as Darjiling is of Bengal, 
and is visited every year by their Lieutenant-Governor 
and a large portion of Allahabad society. It is a 
charming spot, with a beautiful little lake surrounded 
by wooded mountains; but it is not in proximity to any 
high peaks, nor does it command views of the snowy 
ranges. It does not afford easy access to any of the 
points of special interest in the higher mountains, and 
we do not recommend the Himaliyan tourist to pay it a 
visit, for the time which it would occupy might be much 
better bestowed in other directions ; but it has the ad- 
vantage of having two outposts of civilisation between 



TO THE HEIGHTS. 17 

it and the snowy mountains, — namely, Almora, from 
which a long route by the base of Nanda Kut (22,536 
feet high), will take up to another door into Chinese 
Tartary — and Ranikhet, to which the late Lord Mayo 
had some thought of removing the summer seat of the 
supreme Government from Simla, because it has abun- 
dance of wood and water, and is one of the very few 
places in the Himali}^a where there is a little level 
ground. 

The next sanitarium is Masiiri, or Mussooree, which 
can be reached, through the Sewalik range and the 
beautiful valley of the Dehra Doon, in a long day from 
Saharunpore on the railway. It is not visited by an\- 
Government in particular; there is nobody to look after 
people's morals in that aerial retreat ; and the result is, 
that though Masuri has much quiet family life, and is 
not much given to balls or large gay parties, it }'et has 
the character of being the fastest of all the hill-stations, 
and the one where grass widows combine to allow them- 
selves the greatest liberty. This is scandal, howev^er — 
not exact science ; and as I have something special to 
say about both Masuri and Simla, I shall only remark 
here that they present by far the best points of depar- 
ture for a tour in the interior Himdliya; but it should 
be noted that it is almost impossible to cross the outer 
snowy range from the former station during July, 
August, and September, when the monsoon is piling 
snow upon it, and beneath the snow-line the rivers are 
flooded. 

The younger hill-stations of Dharamsala and Dal- 
housie are a long way to the, north-west of Simla, and 
are so far from the line of railway to Lahore and from 
any carriage roads, that they are not likely to be sought, 
in the first instance, by any tourist, however enterprising. 
But it may be remarked that they are convenient depots 

B 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



of the products of civilisation ; that Dalhousie is a good 
starting-point for Kashmir, and that Dharamsala, where 
the houses stand at elevations of from about 4000 to 
7000 feet high, rises out of the Kangra valley, which 
Lord Canning held to be the most beautiful district in 
India, with the exception of Kashmir, and which com- 
bines the advantages of tropical with Alpine climate and 
vegetation. Very far beyond these, at a height of about 
7000 feet, we have Mari (Muree) which is the hill-station 
for the Panjab and its Lieutenant-Governor, and the 
great point of departure for Kashmir. It is only 40 
miles distant from the Grand Trunk Road at Rawal 
Pindi, and can be reached in hill-carts, so that it is really 
more accessible to the English tourist than some of the 
hill-stations which geographically may appear much 
nearer ; but it is not in immediate proximity to any 
very high ranges, though sometimes a glimpse can be 
got from its neighbourhood of the wonderful peak of 
Nangha Purbat, which is 26,629 feet high. Close to the 
Indus, where the Himaliya have changed into the Hindu 
Kush, there is Abbotabad, which, though a military 
station, and little over 4000 feet, is one of the points 
which command Kashmir; and it has beside it the sani- 
tarium of Tandali, or Tundiani, which presents more 
extensive views from the height of 9000 feet. And here 
our line of sanitariums comes to an end ; for though the 
plain of our trans-Indus possession is bounded by the 
most tempting mountains, the lower ranges of the Hindu 
Kush, yet if the tourist makes even the slightest attempt 
to scale these, he will find that, between the Akoond of 
Swat, the Amir of Kaubul, and the officers of the British 
Government, he will have an uncommonly bad time of 
it, and may consider himself fortunate if he is only 
brought back neck-and-crop to Peshawur (Peshawur) 
and put under surveillance, or ordered out of the district. 



TO THE HEIGHTS. 19 



Simla, as I have indicated, is the best starting--point 
for the inner Himaliya, besides being an interesting 
place in itself, as usually the summer residence of the 
Viceroy and the other chiefs of the supreme Government 
of India, though this year they have been detained in 
Calcutta by the Bengal famine. But Masuri is more 
easy of access; that place, or rather the closely adjacent 
military station of Landaur (Landour), commands a 
finer view of snowy peaks ; and it is not necessary to 
descend from Masuri to the burning plains in order to 
reach Simla, as a good bridle-road, passing through the 
new military station of Chakraota, connects the two 
places, and can be traversed in fourteen easy marches, 
which afford very good preliminary experience for a 
tour in the Himaliya. In April of last year Masuri was 
the first elevation I made for, and eagerly did I seek its 
cool breezes after the intense heat of Agra and Delhi. 
Anglo-Indians are very hospitable towards Engh'sh tra- 
vellers; and as the thoughtful kindness of Sir William 
Muir, the then Lieutenant-Governor of the North- West 
Provinces, had furnished me with some valuable letters 
of introduction, I could not but accede to his wish that 
I should go to Rurki (Roorkee) and see the Engineering 
College there, the workshops, and the works of the 
Ganges Canal. At Saharunpore, the railway station 
for Rurki, there is a botanical garden, and a valuable col- 
lection of fossils, under the charge, and created by the 
labours, of Dr Jamieson, of the Forest Department, a 
relative and pupil of the well-known mineralogist, and 
one of the founders of the science of geology, who for 
fifty years occupied the post of Professor of Natural 
History in the University of Edinburgh. Of Rurki 
itself, and its invaluable canal, which has done so much 
to prevent famine in the North-West Provinces, I hope 
to speak elsewhere, I was fortunate enough there to be 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



the guest of Major Lang, the very able Principal of the 
Engineering College, who had formerly been engaged 
in the construction of "the great Hindusthan and Tibet 
Road," which runs from Simla towards Chinese Tartary ; 
and any doubts as to where I was bound for were soon 
entirely dissipated by the Principal's descriptions of 
Chini and Pangay, the Indian Kailas, and the Parang 
La. He warned me, indeed, not to attempt Chinese 
Tibet, lest the fate of the unfortunate Adolph Schlagint- 
weit might befall me, and a paragraph should appear in 
the Indian papers announcing that a native traveller 
from Gartok had observed a head adorning the pole of 
a Tartar's tent, which head, there was only too much 
reason to fear from his description of it, must have been 
that of the enterprising traveller who lately penetrated 
into Chinese Tibet by way of Shipki. But then it was 
not necessary to cross the border in order to see Chini 
and the Kailas; and even his children kindled with 
enthusiastic delight as they cried out " Pangay ! Pan- 
gay!" 

As the greatest mela or religious fair of the Hindus 
was being held at this time at Hardwar (Hurdwar), 
where the Ganges is supposed to issue from the Himaliya, 
I went over there to see that extraordinary scene, and 
was fortunate enough to hit upon the auspicious day for 
bathing. That also I must leave undescribed at present, 
and proceed in a dooly from Hardwar, along a jungle- 
path through the Terai to the Dehra Doon and Masuri. 
This was my first experience of the Himaliya. In vain 
had I strained my eyes to catch a glimpse of their snowy 
summits through the golden haze which filled the hot 
air. Though visible from Rurki, and many other places 
in the plains at certain seasons, they are not so in April ; 
but here, at least, was the outermost circle of them — the 
Terai, or literally, the "wet land," the " belt of death." 



TO THE HEIGHTS. 2i 

the thick jungle swarming with wild beasts, which runs 
along- their southern base. It is not quite so thick or so 
deadly here between the Ganges and the Jumna, as it is 
farther to the east, on the other side of the former river, 
and all the way from the Ganges to the Brahmaputra, 
constituting, I suppose, the longest as well as the 
deadliest strip of, jungle-forest in the world. The 
greater cold in winter in this north-western portion, and 
its greater distance from the main range, prevent its 
trees attaining quite such proportions as they do farther 
east ; but still it has sufficient lieat and moisture, and 
sufficiently little circulation of air, to make it even here 
a suffocating hothouse, into which the wind does not 
penetrate to dissipate the moisture transpired by the 
vegetation ; and where, besides the most gigantic Indian 
trees and plants — as the sissoo, the saul tree, with its 
shining leaves and thick clusters of flowers, and the 
most extraordinary interlacing of enormous creepers — 
we have, strange to say, a number of trees and other 
plants properly belonging to far-distant and intensely 
tropical parts of the earth, such as the Cassia elata of 
Burmah, the Marlea hcgonicEfolia of Java, the Diiriiigia 
celosiocides of Papua, and the Neriiini odorum of Africa. 
This natural conservatory is a special haunt for wild 
animals, and for enormous snakes, such as the p}'thon. 
The rhinoceros exists in the Terai, though not beyond 
the Ganges ; but in the part we now are ---that between 
the Ganges and the Jumna — there are wild elephants, 
and abundance of tiger, leopard, panther, bear, antelope, 
and deer of various kinds. My Bombay servant had 
heard so many stories at Hardwar about the inhabitants 
of this jungle, that he entered into it with fear and 
trembling. If the word Jiatii (elephant) was uttered 
once by our coolies, it was uttered a hundred times in 
the course of the morning. Before we had gone very 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



far, my dooly was suddenly placed on the ground, and 
my servants informed me that there were some wild 
elephants close by. Now, the idea of being in a canvas 
dooly when an elephant comes up to trample on it, is 
by no means a pleasant one ; so I gathered myself put 
slowly and deliberately, but with an alacrity which I 
could hardly have believed possible. Surely enough, 
the heads and backs of a couple of large elephants were 
visible in the bush ; and as they had no howdabs or 
cloths upon them, the inference was fair that they were 
wild animals. But a little observation served to show 
that there were men beside them. They turned out to 
be tame elephants belonging to a Mr Wilson, a well- 
known Himaliyan character, who was hunting in the 
Terai, and who seems to have been met by every tra- 
veller to Masuri for the last twenty years. I did not see 
him at this time, but afterwards made his acquaintance 
in the hotel at Masuri, and again in Bombay. It will 
give some idea of the abundance of game in this part of 
the Terai to mention, that on this shooting excursion, 
which lasted only for a very few days, he bagged two 
tigers, besides wounding another, which was lost in the 
jungle, three panthers, and about thirty deer. Mr Wil- 
son has been called the " Ranger of the Hima!i\-a," and 
his history is a curious one. About thirty years ago he 
w-andered up to these mountains on foot from Calcutta 
with his gun, being a sort of superior " European loafer." 
There his skill as a hunter enabled him to earn more 
than a livelihood, by preserving and sending to Calcutta 
the skins of the golden pheasant and other valuable 
birds. This traffic soon developed to such proportions, 
that he emplo)-ed nr<xny pah arries to procure for him the 
skins of birds and animals, so that his returns were not 
solely dependent on the skill of his own hand. He 
married a native mountain lad}', who possessed some 



TO THE HEIGHTS. 23 

land, a few days' marches from Masuri ; and finally, by 
a fortunate contract for supplying Indian railways with 
sleepers from the woods of the Himali\-a, he had made 
so much mone\', that it was currently believed at Masuri, 
when I was there, that he was worth more than ^150,000. 
I was interested in his account of the passes leading 
towards Yarkund and Kashmir, with some of which he 
had made personal acquaintance. I may mention, also, 
that he spoke in very high terms of the capacities, as an 
explorer, of the late Mr Hayward, the agent of the 
Geographical Society of London, who was cruelh' mur- 
dered on the border of Yassin, on his way to the Pamir 
Steppe, the famous " Roof of the World." It has been 
rumoured that IVIr Hayward was in the habit of ill- 
. treating the people of the countries through which he 
passed ; but Mr Wilson, who travelled with him for some 
time, and is himself a great favourite with the moun- 
taineers, repelled this supposition, and said he had met 
with no one so well fitted as this unfortmiate agent of 
the Geographical Society for making his way in difficult 
countries. I do not think that the least importance 
should be attached to accusations of the kind which" have 
been brought against Mr Hayward, or rather against his 
memory. The truth is, it is so absolutely necessary at 
times in High Asia to carry matters with a high hand 
— so necessary for the preservation, not only of the 
traveller's own life, but also of the lives of his atten- 
dants — that there is hardly a European traveller in that 
region, against whom, if his mouth were only closed with 
the dust of the grave, and there was any reason- for 
getting up a case against him, it could not be proved, in 
a sort of way, that it was his ill-treatment of the natives 
which had led to his being murdered. I am sure such a 
case could have been made out against myself on more 
than one occasion; and an officer on the staff o'i the 



24 THE ABODE OF SNO W. 

Commander-in-Chief in India told me, that the people 
of Spiti had complained to him, that a Sahib, who knew 
neither Hindusthani nor English, much less their own 
Tibetan dialect,- had been beating them because they 
Could not understand him. Now, this Sahib is one of 
the mildest and most gentlemanly of the members of the 
present Yarkund Mission, and the cause of his energy in 
Spiti was, that, shortly before, in Lahoul, several of his 
coolies had perished from cold, owing to disobedience 
of his orders, and being a humane man, he was anxious 
to guard against the recurrence of such an event. But 
when treating of Kashmir, I shall speak more openly 
about the story of Hayward's death, and only vdsh to 
note here the testimony in his favour which was borne 
by the experienced "Ranger of the Himaliya," who has 
become almost one in feeling with the people among 
whom he dwells. 

In the centre of this Terai, there is an expensively- 
built police chowkie, in which I took refuge from the 
extreme heat of the day ; but what police have to do 
there, unless to apprehend tigers, does not appear at 
first sight. It is quite conceivable, however, that the 
conservatory might become a convenient place of refuge 
for wild and lawless men, as well as for wild plants and 
wild beasts. Hence the presence in its midst of these 
representatives of law and order, who hailed the visit 
of a Sahib with genuine delight. The delay here pre- 
vented me reaching the cultivated valley of the Dehra 
Doon till midnight, so torches were lit long before we 
left the thicker part of the Terai ; their red light made 
the wild jungle look wilder than ever, and it was with a 
feeling of relief that we came upon the first gardens and 
tea plantations. There is no place in India, unless per- 
haps the plateaus of the Blue Mountains, which remind 
one so much of England as the little valley of the Dehra 



n 



TO THE HEIGHTS. 



Doon ; and Sir George Campbell lias well observed that 
no district has been so happily designed by nature for 
the capital of an An_g"lo- Indian empire. It lies between 
the Sewalik or sub-Himaliyan range and the Hinialiya 
itself. This former low line of hills, which is composed 
from the debris of the greater range, has its strata dip- 
ping towards the latter in a north-easterly direction, and 
consists of a few parallel ridges which are high towards 
the plains, but sloping in the direction of the Himaliya 
where there is any interval between. It contains an 
immense collection of the fossil bones of the horse, bear, 
camel, hyena, ape, rhinoceros, elephant, crocodile, hippo- 
potamus, and also of the sivatherium, the megatherium, 
and other enormous animals not now found alive. At 
some places it rests upon the Himali}'a, and at others is 
separated from them by raised valleys. The Dehra 
Doon is one of those elevated valleys, with the Upper 
Ganges and Jumna flowing through it on opposite sides, 
and is about seventy miles in length and nearly twenty 
in breadth. It is sometimes spoken of by enthusiasts 
for colonisation in India, as if the whole Anglo-Saxon 
race might find room to establish themselves there ; but 
it is realh'- a very small district, with almost all the avail- '^ 
able land occupied ; and from Masuri we see the whole 
of it h'ing at our feet and bounded by the two shining 
rivers. It is a very pleasant place, however. Being so 
far north, just about 30° of latitude, and at an elevation 
of a little over 20CO feet, it enjoys a beautiful climate. 
Even in the hot season the nights and mornings are 
quite cool, which is the great thing in a hot country; 
the fall of rain is not so great as in the plains below or 
in .the hills immediately above; and in the cold season 
the temperature is delightful, and at times bracing. I 
saw roses in the Dehra Doon growing under bamboos 
and mango-trees, and beds of fine European vegetables 



26 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

side by side with fields of the tea shrub. In one planta- 
tion which I examined particularly, the whole process 
of preparing the tea was shown to. me. It was under 
the superintendence of a Celestial, and the process did 
not differ much from that followed in China, but the 
plants were smaller than those usually seen in the 
Flowery Land. After havino- been for long a rather 
unprofitable speculation, the cultivation of tea on the 
slopes of the Himaliya is now a decided monetary suc- 
cess ; and the only difficulty is to meet the demand for 
Indian tea which exists not only in India and Europe 
but also in Central Asia. Dr Jamieson of Saharunpore, 
who has interested himself much in the growth of tea in 
India, and pressed it on when almost everybody de- 
spaired of its ever coming to anything, was kind enough 
to give me a map showing the tea districts of the western 
Himaliya ; and I see from it that they begin close to the 
Nepalese frontier at Pethoraguih in Kumaon. A num- 
ber of them are to be found from a little below Naini 
Tal northwards up to Almora and Ranikhet. Besides 
those in the Dehra Doon, there are some in its neigh- 
bourhood immediately below Masuri, and to the east of 
that hill-station. Next we have those at Kalka on the 
way to Simla from Ambala (Umballa), at or rather just 
below Simla itself, at Kotghur in the valley of the Sutlej, 
and in the Kulii valle\% so famed for the beauty and im- 
morality of its women. And lastly, there is a group at 
Dharamsala, and in the Kangra valley and its neighbour- 
hood. The cultivation of tea does not seem to get on 
in the Hima!i}-a above the height of 6coo feet, and it 
flourishes from that height down to about 2000 feet, or 
perhaps lower. Some people are verv^ fond of Indian 
tea, and declare it to be equal, if not superior, to that of 
the Middle Kingdom ; but I do not agree with them at 
all. When my supplies ran out in High Asia, tea was 



TO THE HEIGHTS. 27 

for some time my only artificial beverage, though that, 
too, failed me at last, and I was obliged to have recourse 
to roasted barley, from which really very fair coffee can 
be made, ^nd coffee quite as good as the liquid to be 
had under that name in half the cafes of Europe. It is 
in such circumstances that one can really test tea, when 
we are so dependent on it for its refreshing and invigo- 
rating effects ; and I found that none of the Indian tea 
which I had with me — not even that of Kangra, which 
is the best of all — was to be compared for a moment, 
either in its effects or in the pleasantness of its taste, 
with the tea of two small packages from Canton, which 
were given me by a friend just as I was starting from 
Simla. The latter, as compared with the Himaliyan 
tea, was as sparkling hock to home-brewed ale, and yet 
it was only a fair specimen of the ordinary better-class 
teas of the Pearl river. 

Looking from 'Rajpore at the foot of the hills up to 
Masuri, that settlement has a very curious appearance. 
Many of its houses are distinctly visible along the ridges; 
but they are so very high up, and so immediately above 
one, as to suggest that we are in for something like the 
labours and the experience of Jack on the bean-stalk. 
In the bazaar at Rajpore, I was reminded of the Alps 
by noticing several cases of goitre: and I afterwards 
saw instances of this disease at Masuri ; at Kalka, at 
the foot of the Simla hills; at Simla; at Nirth, a very 
hot place near Rampur in the Sutlej valley ; at Lippe, 
a cool place, about. 9000 feet higli, in Upper KunaAvur, 
with abundance of good water; at Kaelang in Lahoul, 
a similar place, but still higher ; at the Ringdom Mon- 
astery in Zanskar, about 12,000 feet high; in the great 
open valley of Kashmir; and at Peshawar in the low-lying 
trans-Indus plains. These cases do not all fit into any 
particular theory which has been advanced regarding the 



28 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

cause of this hideous disease ; and Dr Bramley has men- 
tioned in the Transactions of the Medical Society of 
Calcutta, that in Nepal he found goitre was more pre- 
valent on the crests of high mountains than in the 
valleys. The steep ride to Masiiri up the vast masses 
of mountain, which formed only the first and compara- 
tively insignificant spurs of the Himaliya, gave a slight 
foretaste of what is to be experienced among their giant 
central ranges. 

Masuri, though striking enough, is by no means a 
picturesque place. It wants the magnificent deodar and 
other trees of the Simla ridge, and, except from the 
extremxC end of the settlement, it has no view of the 
Snowy Mountains, though it affords a splendid outlook 
over the Dehra Doon, the Sewaliks, and the Indian 
plains beyond. The "Himalayan Hotel" there is the 
best hotel I have met with in India; and there are also 
a club-house and a good subscription reading-room and 
library. Not a few of its English inhabitants live there 
all the year round, in houses, many of which are placed 
in little shelves scooped out of the precipitous sides of 
the mountain. The ridges on which it rests afford only 
about five miles of riding-paths in all, and no tableland. 
Its height is about 7000 feet — almost all the houses be- 
ing between 6400 and 7200 feet above the level of the 
sea. But this insures a European climate ; for on the 
southern face of the Himaliya the average yearly temper- 
ature of London is found at a height of about 8000 feet. 
The chief recommendation of Masuri is its equality of 
temperature, both from summer to winter and from day 
to night ; and in most other respects its disadvantages are 
rather glaring. In April, I found the thermometer in a 
shaded place in the open air ranged from 60° Fahr. at 
daybreak, to 71° between two and three o'clock in the 
afternoon ; and the rise and fall of the mercury were 



TO THE HEIGHTS. 29 



very gradual and regular indeed, though there was a 
good deal of rain. The coldest month is January, which 
has a mean temperature of about 42° 45' ; and the hot- 
test is July, which has 6j° 35'. The transition to the 
rainy season appears to make very little difference ; but 
while the months of October and November are delight- 
ful, with a clear and serene sky, and an average tempera- 
ture of 54°, the rainy season must be horrible, expos'ed 
as Masuri is, without an intervening rock or tree, to the 
full force of the Indian south-west monsoon. The Baron 
Carl Hiigel mentions that when he was there in 1835, 
the rain lasted for cigJity-five days, with an intermission 
of only a few hours. It cannot always be so bad as that 
at Masuri in summer, but still the place must be exceed- 
ingly wet, cold, and disagreeable during the period of 
the monsoon ; and it is no wonder that, at such a season, 
the residents of the Dehra Doon much prefer their 
warmer and more protected little valley below. 

Notwithstanding the attractions of the " Himalayan 
Hotel," I would recom.mend the visitors to Masuri to 
get out of it as soon as possible, and to follow the 
example of the American who said to me after forty- 
eight hours he could stand it no longer, and that he 
wanted "to hear them panthers growling about my tent." 
The two great excursions from this place are to the 
Jumnotri and the Gangotri peaks, where the sacred 
rivers, Jumna and Ganges, may be said to take their rise 
respectively. These journeys involve tent-life, and the 
usual concomitants of Himaliyan travel, but they are 
well worth making ; for the southern side of the sunny 
Himaliya in this neighbourhood is grand indeed. It is 
only fifteen marches from Masuri to the glacier from 
which the Ganges is said to issue, though, in reality, a 
branch of it descends from much further up among the 
mountains ; and these marches are quite easy except for 



30 THE ABODE CF SNOW. 

nine miles near to the glacier, where there is "a very 
bad road over ladders, scaffolds," &c. It is of import- 
ance to the tourist to bear in m.ind that, in order to pur- 
sue his pleasure in the Himaliya, it is not necessary for 
him to descend froni Masuri to the burning plains. The 
hill-road to Simla I have already spoken of. There is 
also a direct route from Masuri to Wangtu Bridge, in 
the Sutlej valley, over the Burand Pass, which is 15,180 
feet high, and involving only two marches on which there 
are no villages to afford supplies. This route to Wangtu 
Bridge is only fourteen marches, and that place is so 
near to Chini and the Indian Kailas that the tourist 
might visit these latter in a few days from it, thus seeing 
some of the finest scenery in the snowy Himaliya ; and 
he could afterwards proceed to Simla from Wangtu in 
eleven marches along the cut portion of the Hindusthan 
and Tibet road. There is another and still more inter- 
estmg route from Masuri to the valley of the Sutlej over 
the Nila or Nilung Pass, and then down the wild Buspa 
valley ; but that pass is an exceedingly difficult one, and 
is somewhere about 18,000 feet high, so no one should 
atternpt it without some previous experience of the high 
Himaliya ; and it is quite impassable when the monsoon 
is raging, as indeed the Burand Pass may be said to be 
also. The neophyte may also do well to remember that 
tigers go up to the snow on the south side of the Hima- 
liya ; and that, at the foot of the Jumnotri and Gangotri 
peaks, besides " them panthers," and a tiger or two, he 
is likely enough to have snow-bears growling about his 
tent at night. 

I had been unfortunate in not having obtained even a 
single glimpse of the snowy Himali\'a from the plains, 
or from any point of m}' journey to Masuri, and I learned 
there that they were only visible in the early morning at 
that season. Accordinglv I ascended one morning at 



TO THE HEIGHTS. 31 

daybreak to the neighbouring- military station of Lan- 
daur, and there saw these giant mountains for the first 
time. Sir Alexander Burnes wrote in his " Travels into 
Bokhara," &c. — " I felt a nervous sensation of joy as I 
first gazed on the Himalaya." When Bishop Heber 
saw them, he " felt intense delight and awe in looking 
on them." Even in these anti-enthusiastic times I fancy 
most people experience some emotion on first beholding 
those lofty pinnacles of unstained snow, among which 
the gods of Hindusthan are believed to dwell. From 
Landaur a sea of mist stretched from m}- feet, veiling, 
but not altogether concealing, ridge upon ridge of dark 
mountains, and even covering the lower portions of the 
distant great wall of snow. No sunlight as }'et fell upon 
this dark yet transparent mist, in which the mountainous 
surface of the earth, with its black abysses, seemed sunk 
as in a gloomy ocean, bounded by a huge coral-reef. 
But above this, dazzling and glorious in the sunlight, 
high up in the deep blue heavens, there rose a white 
shining line of gigantic " icy summits reared in air." No- 
thing could have been more peculiar and striking than 
the contrast between the wild mountainous country be- 
low — visible, but darkened as in an eclipse — and these 
lofty domes and pinnacles of eternal ice and neve. No 
cloud or fleck of mist marred their surpassing radiance. 
Every glacier, snow-wall, icy aiguille, and smooth-rounded 
snow-field, gleamed with marvellous distinctness in the 
morning light, though here and there the sunbeams drew 
out a more overpowering brightness. These were the 
Jumnotri, and Gangotri peaks, the peaks of Badrinath and 
of the Hindu Kailas ; the source of mighty sacred rivers ; 
the very centre of the Himaliya; the Himniel, or heaven 
of the Teuton Aryans as well as of Hindu mythology. 
Mount Meru itself may be regarded as raising there its 
golden front against the sapphire sky ; the Kailas, or 



32 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

" Seat of Happiness/' is the coelwn of the Latins ; and 
there is the fitting-, unapproachable abode of Brahma and 
of his attendant gods, Gandharvas and Rishis. 

But I now felt determined to make a closer acquaint- 
ance with these wondrous peaks — to move among them, 
upon them, and behind them — so I hurried from Masuri 
to Simla by the shortest route, that of the carriage-road 
from the foot of the hills through the Sewaliks to Saha- 
runpore ; by rail from thence to Ambala, by carriage to 
Kalka, and from Kalka to Simla in a jJiainpan, by the 
old road, which, however, is not the shortest way for that 
last section, because a mail-cart now runs along the new 
road. Ambala, and the roads from thence to Simla, 
present a very lively scene in April, when the Governor- 
General, the Commander-in-Chief, the heads of the 
supreme Government, their baggage and attendants, and 
the clerks of the different departments, are on their way 
up to the summer retreat of the Government of India. 
It is highly expedient for the traveller to avoid the days 
of the great rush, v/hen it is impossible for him to find 
conveyance of any kind at any price — -and I did so ; but 
even coming in among the ragtag and bobtail, — if deputy- 
commissioners and colonels commanding regiments — 
men so tremendous in their own spheres — may be thus 
profanely spoken of, — there was some difficulty in pro- 
curing carriage and bungalow accommodation ; and 
there was plenty of amusing company, — from the ton- 
weight of the post-office official, who required twenty 
groaning coolies to carry him, to the dapper little lieu- 
tenant or assistant deput}--commissioner, who cantered 
lightly along parapetless roads skirting precipices ; and 
from the heavy-browed sultana of some Gangetic station, 
whose stern look palpably interrogates the amount of 
your monthly /(T^^cfr, to the more lilylike young Anglo- 
Indian dame or damsel, who darts at you a Parthian, 



TO THE HEIGHTS. ^i 

yet gentle glance, though shown " more in the eyelids 
than the eyes," as she trips from h.QX jhampan or Bareilly 
dandy into the travellers' bungalow. 

In the neighbourhood of Simla there is quite a collec- 
tion of sanitariums, which are passed, or seen, by tjie 
visitors to that more famous place. The first of these, 
and usually the first stopping-place for the night of 
those who go by the old bridle-road from Kalka, is Kus- 
sowli, famous for its Himaliyan beer, which is not unlike 
the ordinary beer of Munich. It is more rainy than 
Simla, more wind}% and rather warmer, though as high, 
or a little higher, and is chiefly occupied as a depot for 
the convalescents of European regiments. Close to it 
rises the barren hill of Sonawur, where there is the (Sir 
Henry) Lawrence Asylum, for boys and girls of Euro- 
pean or mixed parentage, between 400 and 500 being 
usually supported and educated there at the expense of 
Government. Two other sanitariums, Dagshai (Dugshaie) 
and Subathu (Subathoo), are also military depots, — the 
latter having large barracks, and houses with fine gar- 
dens and orchards. The British soldier improves greatly 
in strength and appearance on these heights ; but it is 
said he does not appreciate the advantages of being 
placed upon them. He does not like having to do so 
much for himself as falls to his lot when he is sent to the 
mountains. He misses the Indian camp-followers, who 
treat him below as a Chota Lord Sahib ; and, above all, 
he misses the varied life of the plains, and the amuse- 
ment of the bazaar. I am afraid, too, mountains fail 
to afford him much gratification after his first burst of 
pleasure on finding himself among and upon them. 
" Sure, and I've been three times round that big hill 
to-day, and not another blessed thing is there to do up 
here!" I heard an Irish corporal indignantly exclaim. 
To the officers and their families the hills are a delight- 
ful change ; but to^ the undeveloped mind of Tommy 

c 



34 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

Atkins they soon become exceedingly tiresome, though I 
believe the soldiers enjoy much being employed in the 
working parties upon the roads, where they have the 
opportunity of laying by a little money. 

The mountains between Kalka and Simla are wild and 
picturesque enough, but they give no idea of either the 
grandeur or the beauty of the Himaliya ; and the tra- 
veller should be warned against being disappointed with 
them. No ranges of eternal snow are in sight ; no forests 
of lofty deodar; no thick jungle, like that of the Terai ; 
no smiling valleys, such as the Dehra Doon. We have 
only the ascending of steep bare mountain-sides, in order 
to go down them on the other side, or to wind along bare 
mountain-ridges. The hills either rest on each other, or 
hive such narrow gorges between that there is no room 
for cultivated valleys ; and their faces are so steep, and 
so exposed to the action of the Indian rains, that all the 
soil is swept away from them ; and so we have nothing 
to speak of but red slopes of rock and shingle, with only 
a few terraced patches of cultivation, and almost no trees 
at all, except in the immediate vicinity of the military 
stations. The worst parts of Syria would show to ad- 
vantage compared with the long approach to Simla. L 
understand, however, that the actual extent of cultiva- 
tion is considerablygreater than one would readily sup- 
pose, and occasionally the creeping vine and the cactus 
do their best to clothe the rocky surface. On ascending 
the Simla ridge itself, however, a change comes over the 
scene. Himaliyan cedars and oaks cover the heights 
and crowd the glades ; rhododendrons, if it be their 
season of bloom, give quite a glory of colour ; and both 
white and red roses appear among the brambles and 
berberries of the thick underwood : a health}' resinous 
odour meets one from the forest of mighty pine-trees, 
mingled with more delicate perfumes ; beds of fern, with 
couches of moss, lie along the roadside ; masses of cloud 



TO THE HEIGHTS. 



35 



come rolling down the valleys from the rounded, thickly- 
wooded summit of Hatto ; deep glens, also finely wooded, 
fall suddenly before our feet. On the one side, over a 
confusion of hills and the edifices of Subathu and Dag- 
shai, we have glimpses of the yellow burning Indian 
plain ; on the other, through the oak branches and the 
tower-like stems of deodar, there shines the long white 
line of eternal snow upon the giant mountains of Chamba, 
Kulu, and Spiti. It was a matter of life or death for me 
to reach those snowy solitudes, and I found the words of 
Mignon's song in "Wilhelm Meister" flitting across my 
brain, and taking a new meaning : — 

Know'st tlioii the land where towering cedars rise 
In graceful majesty to cloudless skies ; 
Where keenest winds from icy summits blow 
Across the deserts of eternal snow ? 
Know'st thou it not? 

Oil there ! oh there I 
My wearied spirit, let us flee from care ! 

Know'st thou the tent, its cone of snowy drill, 
Pitched on the greensward by the snow-fed rill ; 
Where whiter peaks than marble rise around, 
And icy ploughshares pierce the flower-clad ground? 
Know'st thou it well ? 

Oh there ! oh there ! 
WHiere pipes the marmot — fiercely growls the bear 1 

Know'st thou the cliffs above the gorges dread, 
Where the great yaks with trembling footsteps tread. 
Beneath the Alp, where frolic ibex play, 
While snow-fields sweep across the perilous way? 
Know'st thou it thus ? 

Go there ! go thei-e ! 
Scale cliffs, and granite avalanches dare! 

Know'st thou the land where man scarce knows decay, 
So nigh the realms of everlasting day ; 
Wliere gleam the splendours of unsullied truth, 
Where Durga smiles, and blooms eternal youth ? 
Know'st thou it now? 

Oh there ! oil there ! 
To breathe the sweetness of that heavenly air ! 



CHAPTER II. 

SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 

According to some people, and especially according to 
the house-proprietors of Calcutta, who view its attrac- 
tions with natural disfavour, Simla is a very sinful place 
indeed ; and the residence there, during summer, of the 
Viceroy and his members of Council ought to be dis- 
couraged by a paternal Secretary of State for India. 
The " Capua of India" is one of the terms which are 
applied to it; we hear sometimes of "the revels upon 
Olympus ; " and one of the papers seemed to imagine 
that to describe anv official as "a malincrerer at Simla" 
was sufficient to blast his future life. Even the roses 
and the rhododendrons, the ctrav/berxies and che peaches, 
of that " Circean retreat," come in for their share of 
moral condemnation, as contributing to the undeserved 
happiness of a thoughtless and voluptuous community. 
For this view there is som.e show of justification. Simla 
has no open law courts to speak of, or shipping, or mer- 
cantile business, or any of the thousand incidents which 
furnish so much matter to the newspapers of a great city. 
The large amount of important governmental business 
which is transacted there is seldom immediately made 
known, and is usually first communicated to the public 
in other places. Hence there is little for the newspaper 
correspondents to write about except the gaieties of the 
place ; and so the balls and picnics, the croquet and 
badminton parties, the flirtations and rumoured engage- 
ments, are given an importance which they do not 



SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 37 

actually possess, and assume an appearance as if the 
residents of Simla had nothing to do but to enjoy them- 
selves and " to chase the glowing hours with flying feet." 
But, in reality, the dissipation of Simla is not to be 
compared with the dissipation of a London season ; and 
if the doings of any English provincial town or large 
watering-place in its season were as elaborately chron- 
icled, and looked up to and magnified, maliciously or 
otherwise, as those of the Indian Capua are, the record 
would be of a much more scandalous and more impos- 
ing kind. Indeed, unless society is to be put down alto- 
gether,-or conducted on Quaker principles, it is difficult 
to see how the Anglo-Indians, when they go to the hills, 
could conduct themselves much otherwise than as they 
do: and probably more in Simla than anywhere else there 
exists the feeling that life would be tolerable were it not 
for its amusements. After a hard day's office-work, or 
after a picnic which involved a dozen miles' slow ride, 
and a descent on foot for a thousand feet or so into a 
hot valley like that of Mushobra, it is not by any means 
pleasant to don full dress, to put waterproofs over that, 
and to go on horseback or be carried in an uncomfortable 
jJiampan for three or four miles, and in a raging storm 
of wind, thunder, and rain, out to a biirra kJiana^ or big 
dinner, which is succeeded in the same or in some other 
house by a larger evening party. Combinations such as this 
turn social enjoyment into a stern duty ; and as society 
expects that every woman shall do her dut}^, the ladies 
of Simla endure their amusements with the courage and 
spirit of Englishwomen, who, for the sake of their sons 
and brothers and husbands, even more than their own 
sakes, are not going to be left behind in sacrificing aux 
convenances. But no one who knows what European 
society is will accuse Simla, of the present and preceding 
Viceroyships at least, of being an abode of dissipation 



38 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

or of light morality. Wherever youth and beauty meet, 
there will, no doubt, be a certain amount of flirtation, 
even though the youth may be rather shaky from long 
years of hard work in the hot plains of India, or from 
that intangible malady which a friend styles as " too 
much East," and though the beauty be often pallid and 
passe ; but anything beyond that hardly exists at Simla 
at all, and has the scantiest opportunity for developing 
itself. Over-worked secretaries to Government, and 
elderly members of Council, are not given either to in- 
dulge in levity of conduct, or to wink at it in others ; the 
same may be said of their ladies ; and the young officers 
and civilians who go up to Simla for their leave ^are 
usually far-seeing young men who have an eye to good 
appointments, and, whatever their real character may be, 
are not likely to spoil their chances of success b}^ attract- 
ing attention to themselves as very gay Lotharios. 
Moreover, at Simla, as almost everywhere in India, people 
live under glass cases ; everything they do is known 
to their native servants and to the native community, 
who readily communicate their knowledge of such matters 
to Europeans. Before the Mutiny, and perhaps for some 
time after it, matters were somewhat different.' From 
whatever cause, the natives, though they saw the doings 
of the English in India, were as if they saw not, and, as 
a rule, communicated their knowledge on the subject 
only to each other. Now they not only see, but speak freely 
enough ; and no immorality can be carried on in an 
Indian station without its being known all over the 
station, except, perhaps, in cases where the offenders 
are exceedingly popular with the natives, or are in very 
high powerful positions, or the party sinned against is 
very much disliked. 

Some sneers have been indulged in of late, even in 
Parliament, at the alleged industry of members of the 



SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 39 

Supreme Council and other officials to be found at 
Simla, as if a certain amount of hospitality and of min- 
gling in society were incompatible with leading a labo- 
rious life. But if we except the soldiers and regi- 
mental officers, it will be found that most of the English 
in India, be they civilians, staff officers, educationalists, 
surgeons, merchants, missionaries, or editors, are com- 
pelled to live very laborious da}'s, whe'ther they may 
scorn delights or not. A late Indian Governor, accus- 
tomed to Parliamentary and Ministerial life in England,- 
used to declare that he had never been required to work 
so hard in London as he was in his comparatively 
unimportant Presidency town. " Every one is over- 
worked in India," was remarked to me by an Oudh 
Director of Public Instruction, who was himself a not- 
able instance of the assertion : and I have often had 
occasion to notice how much overtasked Indian officials 
of the higher grades are, and that in a country where 
the mind works a good deal more reluctantly and slowly 
than in Europe, and where there is very little pleasure 
in activity of any kind for its own sake. It is absurd to 
suppose that the immense task of Indian government 
can be accomplished by the handful of Englishmen 
there, without the greatest strain upon their individual 
energies. Not only have they to do all the ordinary 
work of a European Government — they have also them- 
selves to fill the greater number of judicial, revenue, 
and educational appointments, to construct public works, 
to direct the police, to accomplish great part of the 
work of governing which, in England, is performed 
by hundreds of thousands of county gentlemen and 
city magnates ; and over and above all that, it is expected 
that they shall save the Indian people from the conse- 
quences of famine, and be able to show every year that 
they have elevated that people in the scale of humanity. 



40 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

The supervision of all this arduous labour — the per- 
formance of a certain share of its details — the sitting in 
judgment on numerous appeal cases of the most various 
and complicated kind — the management of our relation- 
ships with great native States both within and without 
the Indian peninsula — the settlement of important ques- 
tions of the most difficult kind — and by far the greater 
share of the immense responsibilityof governing an alien 
empire of nearly two hundred millions of people — all 
this, and much more, falls upon the Supreme Govern- 
ment, whether it be located at Calcutta or at Simla; 
and to compel it to remain nearly all the year in the 
unhealthy delta of the Ganges would be to burden it 
with a good deal more than the straw which breaks the 
camel's back. 

It is obvious at Simla that the Supreme Government 
has selected for its summer residence about the best 
place to be found among the outer Himaliya. The 
duties of the Government of India will not allow that 
Government to bury itself in the interior of the great 
mountains, where much more healthy spots are to be 
found, or to select any place of residence far distant 
from railway communication. As it is, the Viceroy, 
with his staff, and all the members of Council, and the 
secretaries to Government, could be at Ambala, on the 
great railwa}--line, in about twe.ve hours after leaving 
Simla, or even less on a push ; and fifty hours by rail 
would take them to Calcutta, or sixty hours to Bombay. 
They are in close proximity to the Panjab, and have the 
railway from Ambala to Lahore and Miiltan, with 
steamers from the latter place down the Indus to its 
mouth or to Kotri, from whence there is a short line of 
railway to the port of Karachi. Delhi, Agra, and all 
the great cities of the north-west are within easy reach. 
The}' are in much closer proximit}' to any cities and 



SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 41 

districts likely to be dangerous than they would be at 
Calcutta, and are also much nearer to the places which 
give rise to difficult questions of policy. In old times it 
was different ; but now, with the rail and telegraph going- 
over the land, it is of little importance in which of a 
hundred places the Indian Government may be situated; 
but it is of great importance that its members should 
not be unnecessarily exposed to the depressing and 
destroying influence of the Indian hot season and rains. 
It only remains to remove the headquarters of Govern- 
ment from Calcutta to some more central position, such 
as Agra or Allahabad ; and I fancy only financial con- 
siderations stand in the way of that being done, for it 
would involve the erection of a number of new Govern- 
ment buildings. 

Society everywhere in India labours under very great 
disadvantages, and varies very much according to the 
character of its ever-changing leaders. Sir Emerson 
Tennent has observed that it is " unhappih^ the ten- 
dency of small sections of society to decompose when 
separated from the great vital mass, as pools stagnate 
and putrefy when cut off from the invigorating flow of 
the sea ;" and he adds that the process is variable, so 
that a colonial society which is repulsive to-day may 
be attractive to-morrow, or a contrary change may take 
place with one or two departures or new arrivals. The 
same holds good in India ; and though Indian society 
can boast of some superiority to colonial (a superiority 
which is amusingly asserted on board mail-steamers), 
it has very great defects of its own, and in certain 
circumstances degenerates into the intolerable. One 
tendency of life in India is to create an immense 
amount of conceit, and to make men assume airs of 
superiority, not because of any superiority of mind or 
character, or on account of great services rendered to 



42 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

the State, but simply because loner residence in the 
country, or in some particular district of it, has given 
them high appointments, or the advantage as regards 
local knowledge. Then, though military society has 
many good points, " discipline must be observed ;" 
and it was in perfect good faith, and expressing his 
own opinion, as well as that which he believed to be 
generally entertained, that an old Indian remarked to 
me, " We don't think much of any one's opinions 
here until he is a lieutenant-colonel at least." Of 
course in all countries opinions are often measured by 
the position of the spokesman ; but in Europe that is 
not so much the case as in India, and in our happier 
climes it is easy to shun the society of snobs, Avhether 
social or intellectual, without becoming a social pariah. 
This social tendency is not corrected, but developed 
rather than otherwise, by a close bureaucracy such as 
the Indian Civil Service — and there is no other element 
in the community sufficiently strong to correct it ; 
while it is almost justified by the extraordinary effect 
India has in rapidly producing intense conceit and in- 
sufferable presumption among Europeans of a low 
order of mind and character, whatever classes of the 
community they may belong to. Nothing struck me 
more in that country than the contrast between its 
elevating and even ennobling effects on those Euro- 
peans Avhose minds were above a certain level, and its 
exactly contrary effects on almost all those who were 
below that level. What, then, Indian society has 
specially to struggle against are two apparently oppo- 
site tendencies, — a slavish respect for mere position, 
and for exceptional power and knowledge in parti- 
cular directions ; and, on the other hand, excessive 
individual conceit and presumption. But these evil 
tendencies (which, curiously enough, belong also to 



SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 43 

the Indian native character) are not opposed in any 
such way as to counteract each other. On the con- 
trary, they are apt to foster and inflame each other ; 
because the old Indian justly sees that he has op- 
posed to him an immense deal of ignorant presump- 
tion which ought to be severely repressed, while the 
democrat and the griffin instinctively feel that they 
are oppressed by an amount of tyrannical old fogyism 
which would not be allowed to exist in any other 
country. The more acute English travellers see a 
little of this state of matters ; but everything is made 
as pleasant as possible to travellers in India with 
good introductions ; and it is necessary to reside for 
some time in thie country in order to understand what 
an absolute nonentity a man is in himself, and how 
entirely his importance, his accomplishments, his char- 
acter, his value, and his very raison d'etre, depend on 
the appointment which he holds. I do not at all 
wonder at that old sergeant in a very out-of-the-way 
place in the jungle, who, on being asked what he did 
there, answered with some surprise, " Why, sir, I fills 
the sitivation." In Anglo-India you not only fill the 
situation ; it is the situation that fills you, and makes 
you what you are, and without which you would im- 
mediately collapse. 

These observations are necessary to explain the great 
superiority of Simla society, when I knew it, over the 
society to be found in nearly all other places in India. 
That superiority would not be accounted for merely by 
the number of high officers collected there, whom a 
process of selection had brought to the front. In a 
community such as that of India, the two strong evil 
tendencies which I have just noticed as specially exist- 
ing there, are most effectually held in check when the 
highest appointments are held by men of high intellect 



44 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

and good disposition, using the latter phrase so as to 
exclude alike the pharisee and the prodigal. Whenever 
the leaders of societ}' are essentially commonplace men, 
whose only claim to distinction is that they fill the 
situation, society degrades to a state which is almost 
inconceivable in Europe. Everything is lost sight of 
except the cunning faculty of serving the incompetent 
ruling powers, so as to secure good appointments from 
their hands. Then rises supreme an incompetent, unin- 
tellectual, yet unscrupulous and overbearing element, 
which has no sympathetic relationship to the great 
sacrifices, the difficulties, and the future of our position 
in India : where true gentlemanliness disappears, in- 
tellect is undervalued, and genius is regarded as some- 
thing like a stray panther or tiger. It is then that, 
while the people of India are treated with excessive and 
inexcusable arrogance, at the same time the most 
necessary safeguards against mutiny and rebellion are 
carelessly neglected ; and when popular commotions do 
appear, they are allowed to gather head, and to reach a 
dangerous height before anything like effective attempts 
are made to deal with them. 

In Simla, last year, the state of matters was very 
different from that which I have just described. In 
both the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief, India 
had the good fortune to possess able and experienced' 
noblemen, who thoroughly understood, and rose to the 
level of, the higher responsibilities of their position. 
This alone was sufficient to elevate the whole tone of 
the society about them, in a community which so 
readily answers to the guidance of its official leaders ; 
and they had around them a considerable number of 
able, conscientious, and high-minded Englishmen. I 
was only at Simla during the month of May, but had 
sufficient opportunity of observing that Lord North- 



SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 45 

brook might be compared not unfavourably with many 
of the greater Governor-Generals of India ; and that 
the instinct of the people of the country, which had led 
them to esteem and trust him almost from the com- 
mencement of his Viceroyship, was by no means an 
erroneous one. They are extremely acute, and won- 
derfully just judges of character ; and I knew that 
their opinion on this subject was shared by many of 
the Englishmen who were best acquainted with India, 
and most devoted to its interests. If the new Viceroy 
did not equal Lord Mayo in charm of personal manner, 
and in power of setting every one around him to work 
energetically on their own lines, he possessed what is 
more specially needed at present, more than Lord 
Mayo's power of holding his great officers in hand, 
and of refusing to allow their specialties and crotchets 
being run to excess, and developed to the detriment 
of India and of the imperial interests of Great Britain. 
If he had not all Lord Elgin's experience and 
large-minded dealing with the outlying questions 
of English policy, he brought to bear upon them the 
caution, the trained habits, the ceaseless, thoughtful 
energy of an English statesman, in a manner which 
colonial and Indian officials have little opportunity of 
practising themselves in. If the insinuations of some 
of the newspaper correspondents are true, he may be 
deficient in Lord William Bentinck's aristocratic calm- 
ness under criticism and judicial appreciation of the 
value of the Indian press. But it is certain that India 
has in him a Governor-General of high character and of 
pure-minded unselfish disposition, which it can greatly 
trust. I could not but be struck during my stay at 
Simla with his genuineness of character, his clearness of 
vision, and his unaffected kindness and consideration. 
Even in two mistakes which, as it seemed to me, he 



46 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

has made, his errors were almost redeemed by his 
manner of committing them. I allude to his approval 
of the conduct of the Panjab officials towards Mr 
Downes of the Church Mission, Avho made an attempt 
to reach Kafiristan through the Kaubul territory ; and 
to a social question which arose between Government 
House and Major Fen wick of the Civil and Military 
Gazette; but in both these cases Lord Northbrook 
acted in an open manner, which excited the respect 
even of some who most differed from his conclusions. 
And though, of course, he is not infallible, many errors 
of judgment are not to be expected from him., and are 
more likely to arise from a supposed necessity of 
backing up the action of his subordinates, than where 
he himself originates the action. For there is a white 
light in his mind which illuminates every object on 
which it shines — a searching piercing light, proceeding 
from the Viceroy's own mind, and not from the mere 
focussing of other rays. There is something of genius 
in this power which he possesses of lighting up a sub- 
ject, and it is the more remarkable as existing in con- 
junction with his precise business habits. It struck me 
there was a tendency in his Excellency's mind to draw 
rather too decided straight lines, even where conflicting 
interests interlap ; but, truly, if he were to begin pon- 
dering over matters as a many-sided Coleridge might 
do, the public business of India would come to a dead 
lock within twenty-four hours. If he had once formed 
an opinion on any subject, I doubt if it would be easy 
for him to renounce or modify it — though those who 
know his Excellency well say that he is always ready 
to do so whenever new facts relating to the matter come 
before him ; but this rather supports my view ; because 
in most great questions the difficulty is not so much to 
get at the facts, as to perceive their relationships, and 



SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 47 

to take these latter into one comprehensive judicial 
view. The amount of business which he p-oes throuo-h 
is remarkable ; and more than Lord Amherst was, he is 
entitled to say with some surprise, " The Emperor of 
China and I govern half the human race, and yet we 
find time to breakfast ;" for he is exceedingly regardful 
of the courtesies, and of even something more than the 
courtesies, of his trying and responsible position. We 
do not hear so much of Lord Northbrook's feats on 
horseback as we did of tliose of his predecessor; but 
they are not less remarkable. It is only about fift}--two 
miles from Simla to Kotgarh ; but the nature of the 
bridle-road is such, and it runs along the top of so 
many precipices, that it is rather a feat to ride over it in 
less than a day; and I have also heard of his Lordship 
riding from Chini to Narkunda in a dangerously short 
period. I may also note the Viceroy's habit of walk- 
ing' about unguarded, accompanied by a single friend ; 
and have heard of his being seen alone with his son, or 
some other youth, after dark, close to the Ganges, near 
Barrackpore, This may be thought unwise courage ; 
but though undoubtedly courage, I am not sure that 
it is unwise; for really life is not worth having on the 
condition of its being constantly guarded. The class 
of men who violently assassinate in India admire this 
kind of courage so much that they will not readily 
strike at it; and most cases of assassination which 
occur in that country have been committed in spite of 
the close protection of guards. It is doubtful, however, 
if it be wise to have Simla so unprotected as it appears 
to be. I do not remember seeing a single European 
soldier there, unless the Governor-General's band be 
accounted as such. The only representatives of law 
and order visible were two European police-officers, a 
few native policemen, and the Governor-General's 



48 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

native body-guard. It would not have been difficult to 
have extinguished the whole Government of India in 
one night ; and a danger of that sort, however remote 
and unlikely, ought to be guarded against. Nothing in 
India was held to be more unlikely than the Mutiny, 
until it occurred, and even after it had commenced. 

At the close of this Parliament, Her Majesty has ac- 
knowledged the great services of Lord Northbrook, in- 
connection with the Bengal famine, in a manner which 
could scarcely have come from a Ministry opposed to 
that which appointed him, unless his " strenuous exer- 
tions " had really merited very "high approbation." It 
is now seen by the public generally that he has met the 
great and disturbing disaster of the famine in a masterly 
manner. When he was exerting himself to the utmost, 
it Avas inexpedient for the Viceroy to speak of the 
measures he was taking to meet the coming calamity, 
and advantage was taken of his mouth being sealed, and 
of his having wisely refused to prohibit the export of 
rice, to criticise and assail him. Whether intentionally 
or not, an impression was created that the Viceroy did 
not see the magnitude of the danger, and would not of 
himself take energetic and sufficient steps to meet it. 
Highly sensational telegrams and articles to this effect 
appeared in rapid succession ; and it was left out of 
mind that, on the very first report of danger, Lord 
Northbrook hurried down from Simla to Calcutta before 
the conclusion of the unhealthiest month of the year, 
and at once brought all his great energy to bear on the 
subject of the famine. He could not proclaim from the 
housetops any intention of buying up millions on mil- 
lions of tons of rice, and, if necessary, of feeding two and 
a half millions of people for an indefinite period ; because, 
to have done so, would have vastly increased the diffi- 
culty, by making the bunnias throughout India buy and 



SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 49 

store up rice right and left, and by creating a great 
movement into the famine districts of people desirous of 
participating in the bounty of Government. Also, as 
the event has shown, while making perfectly sufficient 
arrangements to meet the coming famine, the Vicero}^ 
refused, on sound economic grounds, to interfere with 
and check private trade, by prohibiting the export of 
rice from Bengal ; and this was immediately seized upon 
as a proof that he did not understand the magnitude of 
the coming crisis, and that he required to be instructed, 
warned, and brought up to a sense of duty by his bene- 
volent and omniscient critics. It was most fortunate ior' 
India that at this crisis a thoughtful statesman was at 
the head of affairs, and one of sufficient force of charac- 
ter to disregard the outcry which was raised against him. 
An excellent authority on the spot, as quoted by the 
Calcutta correspondent of the Times, has well said : " It 
will not be denied, that had it not been for the action 
taken by Government, the mortality would have been 
very great. But I am convinced that it is equally true, 
that had Government action been of a nature to check 
private trade to any extent, the result would also have 
been calamitous. ... I firmly believe, that had Govern- 
ment, last November, proclaimed to the world that they 
intended to rely solely on their own unaided efforts to 
save the people from starvation, the result would have 
been deplorable, both financially and in respect to the 
loss of life zvliick woidcl have ensued^ This is another 
very important view of the matter, and is. by no means 
opposed to what I have said about the bunnias ; because 
they would have bought and stored grain, in order to 
sell it to the Government, rather than with a view to the 
difficult and risky operation of conve}'ing it into the 
famine districts. The Viceroy had also to guard against 
the danger of inviting or allowing the people within the 



5.0 THE ABODE OF SNO W. 

famine circle to rely too much on Government aid, which 
the natives of India are always most ready to do. 

The crisis of the Bengal famine of 1874 has now 
passed, and it is difficult to know whether to admire 
most the manner in which Lord Northbrook and Sir 
Richard Temple have dealt with it so as to prevent 
almost any loss of life, or their success in managing- the 
relief operations, so as to avoid pauperising, or otherwise 
demoralising the people, and so as to bring them readily 
back to their ordinary industrial operations. The first 
of these feats was entirely new in the history of India ; 
the second was still more difficult of accomplishment ; 
its success presents both rulers and ruled in the most 
pleasing light, and is a new illustration of the readiness 
of the people of India to appreciate and conjoin with 
action on the part of Englishmen, which is at once sym- 
pathetic and decided. Large powers are necessary to 
deal with them in a satisfactory manner, and, to that 
end, these powers must be exercised with knowledge of 
the necessities and wishes of the people, and yet with a 
confidence and decision which are only accepted and 
only tolerable when springing from a just conviction that 
the action undertaken and insisted upon is in accordance 
with the highest intelligence and morality. 

But, though unwilling t6 enter here on the general 
subject of Indian policy, I must guard against appear- 
ing, even for a moment, to support the limited view 
which some of Lord Northbrook's admirers and critics 
take of the course which is marked out for him as 
Governor- General of our great Eastern Empire, and 
must make a few general remarks, which, though brief, 
are of cardinal moment. According to that view, the 
only matter of essential importance for India is to reduce 
its expenditure, and to keep that steadily within the 
.limits of the revenue which may be afforded by the pre- 



SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 51 

sent recognised and understood taxation. It is assumed, 
that if that only be done, everything will go well — there 
will be no disaffection in India; and a grateful populace 
will ornament us with garlands of yellow flowers, feast 
us upon pan siipdri, and shower blessings upon our 
honoured heads. I believe that a greater mistake could 
not be made, and that this would be only another side of 
Lord Lawrence's policy of "masterly imbecility," which 
has thrown Central Asia into the hands of Russia. 
Economy and strict financial management are very 
necessary in India, and the Viceroy has clearly seen 
that, and has addressed himself to the task with extra- 
ordinary skill, energy, self-abnegation, and success. But 
if there is a matter on which the people of India are 
likely to overvalue his services and urge him to excess, 
it is on that of financial economy. No one admires 
more than I do their many admirable qualities, but 
among these financial wisdom cannot be reckoned. 
They have no objections to a native prince levying the 
most enormous and oppressive taxation in very hurtful 
time-honoured ways, and spending it in the most reck- 
less, useless, and debauching manner. He may take 
half the produce of their fields, and lavish it on dancing- 
girls, devotees, beggars, and in support of degrading 
superstitions, and they are 'perfectly satisfied; but let 
the English Government incur a productive new ex- 
* penditure, or impose a new tax of the least hurtful kind, 
and they are the most oppressed and afflicted beings in 
the world. We hear a great deal about India being a 
poor country — and that is a statement which should be 
taken with much qualification, for the concealed or 
hoarded treasure of India must be something enor- 
mous ; but in so far as India is a poor country, how and 
why is it poor ,? It is poor, not from any sterility of its 
Boil or scantiness of its products, or from any incapacity 



52 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



of labouring or acquiring knowledge among its people : 
in these respects it is one of the most favoured lands on 
earth. It is poor because it loves to lie down and 
dream, rather than to rise up and work ; because it 
hoards its wealth — buries it in the ground, or sits upon 
it — in preference to turning it to profitable use ; be- 
cause, except where the pride of noble families produces 
female infanticide, it not only exercises no restraint 
upon the, increase of population, but even, in accord- 
ance with its religious ideas, regards any increase, how- 
ever reckless, as partaking of the merit of a religious 
act ; and because it is absolutely eaten up by non-pro- 
ductive classes of people — priests, devotees, beggars, 
retainers, family dependants, and princes and nobles of 
many fallen dynasties. The most energetic and the 
richest country in the world could not stand what India 
not only bears but welcomes, without bringing itself to 
poverty ; and if all the English Raj is to do for India is 
to add another class of unfortunates to it, in the shape 
of overworked and underpaid European officials, with 
their descendants, then I can only say that the English 
Raj is extremely likely to have soon to make way for 
that of Russia or Germany. The essential considera- 
tion has been lost sight of, that either we ought to be in 
India as a nation, in our imperial capacity, or ought not 
to be there at all. A spurious philanthropy (the real 
' motive of which has too often been the difficulty the 
civilians have had in dealing with the independency of 
character of outside Englishmen, and with their some- 
times irrational and brutal humours) has only resulted 
in pushing forward a class of natives who exercise no 
influence over the people, are entirely mistrusted by. 
them, and who cannot but regard us with hatred. At 
the same time, we have ignored the primary duty of 
providing that the work of governing and elevating 



SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 53 

India shall not be ruinous to those who are engaged in 
it, or to their descendants. Hence the creation of a 
large and ever-increasing class of poor whites and half- 
castes, who are a scandal to the Christian name and the 
white race, having been forced by circumstances to 
depths of misery and depravity unknown among the 
jungle tribes, and hence the painful fact that the large 
towns of India contain a number of respectable, fairly 
educated English and Eurasian people who are at their 
wits' end how to live. The financial question is chiefly 
a negative one, meaning the suppression of jobbery and 
folly. The lasting reputation of a Governor-General 
will depend on the services he has rendered in saving 
India from itself, in developing its grand capacities, 
and in making it an integral and valuable constituent 
of the British Empire. 

The famine has also vindicated the character of a 
high officer who last year was looked upon with not a 
little disfavour. Chiefly owing to his connection with 
the income-tax, no one was more unpopular in India 
than Sir Richard Temple, then the financial member of 
Council, but now the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal ; 
and if he were the popularity-hunter which some people 
Xancy him to be, he would have taken care not to asso- 
ciate himself with so obnoxious a tax. In various 
appointments, but especially as secretary to the Panjab 
Government and as Commissioner of the Central Pro- . 
vinces, Sir Richard had proved himself to be an officer 
of very great ability and of- the rarest energy. In the 
Central Provinces, development, which was forced on by 
circumstances, and which might well have occupied a 
century, had to be provided for and regulated within a 
few years ; and this was admirably effected by the 
Commissioner, so as to gain for him the very highest 
repute as an organiser and administrator. It is some- 



54 THE ABOD:^ OF SNOW. 

times said that he has great powers of using other men's 
brains ; but that is really one of the most important 
qualities for a high Indian official, as for all leaders of 
mankind, and I never heard the slightest complaint 
made on that score by the men whose brains he had 
used. On the contrary, they said he had made a legiti- 
mate and the best use of their work, and was always 
ready to advance the fortunes of those who served under 
him — a generosity which is seldom, if ever, displayed by 
humbugs and men of small calibre, I thoroughly be- 
lieve that the income-tax was a most unsuitable tax for 
India, and that Lord Northbrook rendered a great 
service by putting an end to it, let me hope, for all time; 
because it brought in an insignificant sum (to the Gov- 
ernment), did not touch the really wealthy classes, and 
caused an immense dealof oppression and irritation: and 
I should doubt the legislative capacity and higher states- 
manship of any one who upheld the income-tax in India, 
and do not think Sir Richard Temple showed to advan- 
tage as a financier and member of Council ; but the 
Bengal famine has happily served to display his great 
powers. One of his invaluable qualities as an adminis- 
trator is his extraordinary and almost instinctive know- 
ledge of character. He is said— and I can well believe 
it — never to make a mistake in choosing his agents, 
almost never to overlook a man of ability who comes 
within his sphere, or to set men to unsuitable work. 
One of the correspondents of the home press, seeing Sir 
Richard at work in the famine districts, well remarked 
that nature seemed to have intended him for the com- 
mand of a great army. - His reticence and almost taci- 
turnity struck me as a very agreeable variety from the 
pomposity of certain Bombay officials, who turned up 
the whites of their eyes, and really appeared to become 
ill, when any one whom they imagined did not stand 



SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 55 

upon their own fancied level spoke to them consecutively 
for half a minute. Sir Richard does not imagine that 
wisdom of every kind, or even a knowledge of India, is 
confined to his own bosom, and is more anxious to learn 
the opinions of others than to volunteer his own. This 
is a very frequent characteristic of great men of action ; 
and another impression which they leave, and one he 
conveys, is that of possessing a large fund of reserve 
power. I may add that, like Lord Northbrook, he 
practises as an amateur painter, besides having time to 
take his breakfast ; and some of his sketches struck me 
as showing a very remarkable power of understanding 
and artistically reproducing the life of trees. He has 
also done much to promote archaeological research in 
India, and almost every kind of intellectual develop- 
ment. 

The new financial member of Council is Sir William 
Muir, whom I have already alluded to in his position as 
Governor of the North-West Provinces. No member of 
the Civil Service is more generally respected, or could 
be more valuable in the consultative department of the 
Indian Government. An accomplished oriental scholar, 
especially in Mohammedan literature and history, he is 
equally distinguished as an administrator. Though Sir 
William is cautious, and what is called " a safe man," 
yet as a Lieutenant-Governor he showed that, when his 
ripe judgment was convinced, he could take a course of 
his own ia direct opposition to the strong tendencies of 
the Supreme Government. Notably this was the case 
in regard to the income-tax, to the oppressive working 
of which he called attention in the most eff'ective manner, 
at a time when the higher powers were determined that 
it should appear only in a roseate light. In the North- 
West Provinces, however, while personally liked, much 
animosity was excited, especially among non-official 



56 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

Englishmen, by what was considered to be his undue 
favouritism towards what are called the educated natives 
I was somewhat surprised at the depth and fierceness 
of the resentment which had thus been excited. One 
man, in a responsible position, went so far as to say that 
the next rebellion in India would be on the part of the 
Europeans and Eurasians, and that, when such a move- 
ment arose, every English soldier who had been six 
months in the country would be on their side. This 
may appear very absurd to Indian officials, who know 
little of the passions raging in the hearts of the people 
round them, whether natives or Europeans ; but I think 
there is something in it, and that it correctly enough 
indicates the existence of feelings which are not without 
some ground. Another remark of this man, who was 
educated, shrewd, and had a wide and varied experience 
of the world, is worth noting, without attaching to it 
more importance than it deserves. He said : " The 
civilians think that India was made for themselves and 
the natives alone, and it is becoming every day more 
impossible for non-official Englishmen to live in the 
country ; but the natives are discovering that the civilians 
are quite unnecessary also, and it will end in our all 
having to go together — the Englishmen to England, and 
the natives to massacre, famine, and pestilence," 

Of the Commander-in-chief in India, Lord Napier of 
Magdala, it would be difficult to write in terms of too 
high praise. His capacities as a soldier are well known, 
having been abundantly proved in India, Ab}-ssinia, and 
China ; and his thoughtful care for the well-being of the 
troops under his command, and great consideration for 
the most of those with whom he comes in contact, have 
made him hosts of friends. I say " the most" advisedly ; 
for Lord Napier has the character of being a good hater. 
Like Lord Northbrook also, he has a very keen sense in 



SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 57 

detecting humbug in any one — perhaps too keen a sense 
for the present state of human development— and is apt 
to act upon it occasionally in a manner unpleasant to 
the person in whom he detects it ; but that is only after 
he has made up his mind against a man. I had come 
across his Excellency before, on the march to Peking, 
and was struck by his vivid recollection, after so many 
years, of the China Englishmen who accompanied the 
Peking expedition, and by his happy manner of sketch- 
ing off their peculiarities. One man was "always pro- 
ducing dead birds out of his innumerable pockets ;" 
another " had a way of disappearing for days among 
the Chinese, and throwing the whole expedition into 
anxiety for his safety," — and so on. Notwithstanding 
his long and laborious services in India, there seemed 
no failing, either of mental power or ph}'sical endurance, 
in the Commander-in-chief; and the officers at Simla 
said he could easily take the field again, as his conduct 
at the camps of exercise sufficiently proved. He has 
the eagle eye of a great soldier, and when he retires from 
India, he may render great services to the State in con- 
nection with the English army and its organisation. I 
should think no commander ever was a greater favourite 
with his troops, or knew them better, or knew better 
how to manage them, or devoted himself to their wel- 
fare in a more persistent or more enlightened manner. 
At the dinner given to Lord Napier by the Anglo- 
Indians in London, on the occasion of his having been 
created a peer, he said, in efTect, and almost in these 
words — " I landed in India a young officer of Engineers, 
with only my sword, and now it has come to this." 
There was a simplicity and an honest healthy pride in 
the remark, which had nothing of vanity in it. I have 
met men who thought that, as peerages go, he had got 
his peerage rather easily by the Abyssinian war ; but I 



58 THE ABODE 'OF SNOW. 

never heard any even of these critics grudge it to him in 
the least. It is true that the China war of 1863 was 
scarcely less difhcult or brilliant, and was productive of 
more important results ; and the fact that Sir Hope 
Grant got no high reward for his skilful and humane 
conduct of it goes some way to prove that Sir Robert 
Napier was fortunate in the time and circumstances of 
his Abyssinian campaign ; but he was under a great 
temptation to enter on that campaign without the 
means necessary to carry it to a successful conclusion. 
Many an ofhcer would have snatched at the opportunity 
without stipulating for all the requisite means ; and, even 
as it was, the most skilful use of them was necessary to 
accomplish the end which the expedition had in view, if 
not to save it from absolute ruin. It should be borne in 
mind, also, that Lord Napier's command in Abyssinia 
was only the last of a series of brilliant and valuable 
services which had commenced almost from his landing 
at Calcutta, fresh from Addiscombe, forty-six years ago. 
In the battles and sieges of the Panjab; as chief engineer 
of that province, when so much had to be done upon 
its transfer to English rule ; as chief engineer of Lord 
Clyde's army during the Mutiny ; in the pursuit of 
Tantia Topee ; in China, where he planned the capture 
of the Taku Forts, and was second in command of the 
expedition ; and in Bombay as Commander-in-chief, — 
the officer of whom I write had rendered services which 
might have made half a dozen great reputations ; so 
that, even as peerages go, his was fully due by the time 
he had taken the heights of Magdala. I was much 
indebted to his Excellency and his military secretary, 
Colonel Dillon, for maps, advice, &c., in regard to my 
Tibetan journey; and their genuine kindness of disposi- 
tion at once established confidence and gave a charm 
to all intercourse with them. The relationship between 



SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 59 

these two distinguished officers has been a long and 
close one. Colonel Dillon's popularity is somewhat 
diminished by the fact that devotion to his work hardly 
allows of his going into society ; but his value to tiie 
Commander-in-chief, and to the Indian army, is very 
great. 

Of the other Simla celebrities whom I had the plea- 
sure to meet with I can only write briefly. Mr C, U. 
Aitchison, the Foreign Secretary, has more of the Euro- 
pean statesman about him than almost any other Indian 
civilian ; and one cannot fail to see that he has a great 
deal of weight of brain, and of that quality which is 
most easily described by the phrase " long-headedness." 
He was one of the very first of the competition-wallahs. 
Some very excellent men came forward at first under 
the competition system, and continue to do so occasion- 
ally ; but of late the system has become one of cram, 
and the best men from the universities and elsewhere 
are chary of entering into a competition in which suc- 
cess can only be hoped for by disregarding the aims and 
methods of a liberal education, and putting one's self 
under a system of mental development analogous to the 
physical training which Strasburg geese are compelled 
to undergo. Lord Dalhousie, who had a keen eye for 
young men of ability, selected Mr Aitchison as his pri- 
vate secretary at an early period of the latter's career, 
and few positions can afford so wide and complete a 
view of the methods and results of the Indian Govern- 
ment. The heavy crushing work of the Foreign Office 
has been borne by Mr Aitchison in a manner which 
proves his tenacity of purpose and strength of constitu- 
tion ; but there is too much reason to believe that its 
overwhelming demands had undermined the strength of 
Mr Le Poer Wynne, one of the most accomplished and 
promising of the younger Indian officials, whose sudden 



6o THE ABODE OF SNOW. ' 

death, a few months ago, deprived Mr Aitchison of one 
of the most useful and valued of his associates in the 
Foreign Office. Mr Chapman, the Financial Secretary, 
is a fine specimen of the bluff, independent English 
gentleman, who will take his own way wherever pos- 
sible, and fearlessly avow and carry out his opinions. 
He also upheld the unhappy income-tax ; but in other 
questions his usually sound judgment and independence 
of character have proved most useful, especially in the 
stand he has made against the Ritualists — or Anglo- 
Catholics, as they prefer to be called — who had become 
more daring and triumphant in India than they had ever 
been in England. Mr Forsyth, when I was at Simla, 
was preparing for his second Yarkund mission, and I 
did no more than make his acquaintance, but was struck 
by a certain lofty protesting manner he had; for he was 
still under the cloud of the Kuka executions, and of the 
sentence of removal from his commissionership, and of 
general disapproval of his conduct in connection with 
the Kukas, passed upon him by the Government of 
India, when its ruling spirit was Sir John Strachey, in 
the period between the Viceroyships of Lord Mayo and 
Lord Northbrook. The ex-commissioner, however, has 
now performed his pilgrimage ; he has washed away 
his sins, real or alleged, in the sacred waters of the 
Yangi Hissar, and, as Sir Thomas Forsyth, clothed in the 
garments of a Knight of the Star of India, he can move 
again freely in the arena of Indian politics. I saw a 
good deal more of the lamented Dr Stolicza, and well 
remember his saying, in a common foreign idiom, " I 
am awfulh' glad that I have been allowed to go to Yar- 
kund." He was destined never to return from the sterile 
regions of Central Asia ; but perhaps, as human life 
goes, even that was a reason for being glad. I was sur- 
prised to find so youthful a figure in the vir sapiens, 



SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 6i 

docfissimns, Dr W. W. Hunter, who has been harassing 
the souls of Indian officials and editors by his system 
of spelling-, which, however, is his only in that he has 
modified a long existent system, practically applied it, 
and carried it out for the Government. This gentleman is 
as agreeable in societ}^ as in his charming books, and it 
is only to be regretted that he does not trust more 
entirely to his culture and talents for both social and 
official success. Major Fenwick, the journalist, who 
makes Simla his headquarters, is a man of bold, inde- 
pendent spirit, with an immense amount of humour, a 
lively imagination, and great literary knowledge. In 
the Rev. John Fordyce, of the Union Church, I found 
an old friend, who had created a high reputation for 
himself by his combination of prudence and zeal. Nor 
can I omit to make mention of Mr Edmund Downes, 
whose courageous attempt to reach Kafiristan in dis- 
guise had brought him into public notice ; and of two 
Bombay officers, Colonels Ker and Farquharson, who 
did a great deal to make my stay at Simla agreeable. 

The hill on which Simla is situated was first made 
known by the visit to it in 1 8 1 7 of the brothers Gerard, 
two Scotch officers who were engaged in the survey of 
the Sutlej valley ; and the first house was built upon it 
in 1822 by the political agent of the district. About 
that latter year it was purchased, by exchange, by the 
British Government, from the Rana of Keonthul, and 
made into a regular sanitarium. The first Governor- 
General who visited it was Lord Amherst, in 1827. 
Jacquemont described it as having sixty houses for 
Europeans in 1831; and Lord Auckland was the first 
Governor-General to spend a summer there — that of 
J 841. The annexation of the Panjab gave a great im- 
petus to the development of this hill-station. Lord 
Dalhousie liked to establish the headquarters of his 



62 ' THE ABODE OF SNOW, 

government there in summer, because that allowed him 
to reside much during the rains in the drier region of 
Chini, which suited his health. Lord Lawrence accepted 
the Viceroyship on the express condition that he should 
be allowed to spend the summer on the hills, Simla 
being the most convenient spot ; and thus the arrange- 
ment has continued, except that the exigencies of the 
Bengal famine have led the Supreme Government to 
remain in Calcutta this year. In the height of the 
season Simla has now usually a population of about 
fifteen hundred Europeans, and as many thousand 
natives. In a former chapter I have briefly described its 
general appearance and surrounding scenery. One of 
its drawbacks is a deficiency in the supply of water; 
but this might easily be remedied at some expense, 
and probably would be if the house-proprietors were 
assured that the Supreme Government intended to con- 
tinue its summer residence there ; though I do not 
quite see how that doubt should be allowed to have so 
much influence, because many of them argue that the 
example of Masuri has shown that Simla might flourish 
even if it were unvisited by any Government, and might 
thus secure a less uncertain income. The permanent 
residents of the place are enthusiastic in their praises of 
its winter climate, and that is realh' the only season 
of the year in which Simla is calculated to do much 
positive good to invalids, the cold then not being ex- 
treme, while the air is still dry, and both invigora- 
ting and exhilarating ; but it is as a retreat in the hot 
weather of April and May, and of the rains, that it is 
most used, and I do not know that much can be said in 
its praise as a sanitarium during that long season. Of 
course it is a great thing to escape from the fiery heat 
of the Indian plains in April and May, and from their 
muggy oppressive warmth during the five succeeding 



SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 63 

months ; but that is about the extent of the sanitary 
advantages of Simla in summer, and the climate then 
has serious drawbacks of its own. I derived no benefit 
from it, nor did any of the invalids there with whom I 
was acquainted ; and its effects upon some of them were 
such that they had to leave before the stay they had 
marked out for themselves had been accomplished. In 
May the climate was exceedingly changeable, being 
sometimes oppressively hot, but for the most part cold 
and damp, with thick mists and fierce storms of thunder 
and rain. And when the great rains of the south-west 
monsoon set in upon Simla, there must be few invalids 
indeed for whom it can be a suitable place of residence ; 
and I should think at that season, or for nearly four 
months of the year, a state of almost robust health 
must be necessary in order to derive benefit or enjoy- 
ment from a stay there. It would be well if more 
invalids at that season followed the example of the 
great Lord Dalhousie and went up to Chini, or to some 
other place, where they are close to eternal snow, and 
are protected by a snowy range from the Indian mon- 
soon. 

Whether the traveller be in search of healtlj, or 
sport, or sublime scenery, there is no other place from 
which he can have such convenient access as Simla to 
the interior of the Himaliya, and to the dry elevated 
plains of Central Asia. Routes proceed from it up to 
Chinese Tibet on the east ; to Ladak and the upper 
Indus valley; beyond Ladak to the Karakorum Moun- 
tains and Yarkund ; to Spiti, Lahaul, Zanskar, and all 
the elevated provinces of the Western Himaliya; to 
Chamba and all the other hill-states to the north-west ; 
and to Kashmir, Little Tibet, Gilgit Yassin, and the 
" Roof of the World " itself. Indeed, now that the 
Russians have established a post-office at Kashgar, it 



64 • THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

would be quite possible, and tolerably safe, to walk 
from Simla to St Petersburg, or to the mouth of the 
Amur on the Pacific coast. Those who wish parti- 
cularly to know what can be done from Simla will do 
well to examine the " Route Map for the Western Hima- 
liyas, Kashmir, Panjab, and Northern India," compiled 
by Major Montgomerie of the Great Trigonometrical 
Survey of India. In the appendix to this map he gives 
no less than sixty-three routes, almost all of which 
either proceed from. Simla, or are connected with it by 
intervening routes. It will soon be seen, from the 
Major's remarks on these various routes, that the travel- 
ler in the Himaliya must lay aside his ordinary ideas as 
to roads and house accommodation. Such references as 
the following to the roads and halting-places for the 
night, occur with a frequency which is rather alarming to 
the uninitiated : " No supplies ; " "ditto, and no fuel ;" 
" cross three miles of glacier ;" " ver}^ bad road ; " " ditto, 
and no supplies ; " " road impassable for ponies ; "rope 
bridge ; " "cross the river twice — very difficult to ford;" 
*' Kirghiz summer camp — yaks, &c., supplied ;" "site of 
a deserted village ; " " muddy water only can be got by 
digging holes ;" "grass doubtful, no fuel ;" "ford river, 
water up to waist ;" " cross river on mussaks ; " " gene- 
rally a Tartar or Boti camp;" "cross the Tagalank 
Pass, 18,042 feet; '' and "cross several torrents." 

The great routes from Simla are those which lead 
to Chinese Tibet, to Ladak, and to Kashmir, and run 
from north-east to north-west. The road towards 
Chinese Tibet, at least as far as Chini and Pangay in 
the Sutlej valley, is that which is most affected by 
tourists, because it is a cut road on which a jhanipan 
can be carried, and because it has bungalows which 
were constructed for the road engineers, and are avail- 
able for all European travellers. Shipki in Chinese 



SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 65 

Tibet is only about eight marches be}-ond Pangay, but 
the road is so dreadful that {^.w travellers care to go 
beyond the latter place ; and those who do, avoid the 
Chinese border and turn northward towards Leh in 
Ladak by Hango, Lio, the Parangla Pass, and the 
Tsho Morari Lake. There is a more direct route 
from Simla to Leh, along a cut road or bridle-path, 
through the Kiilu valley, over the Rotang Pass, and 
then through Lahaul, and over the Barra Lacha Pass. 
The directest route from Simla to Kashmir is that by 
way of Belaspur, Kangra, Badrawar, and the Braribal 
Pass, and occupies only about thirty-one marches; but 
it is rather uninteresting, and enterprising travellers 
prefer to go round by Leh, qr to follow some of the 
many ways there are of passing through the sublimer 
scenery of the Himaliya. 

It is comparatively easy to go from Simla direct, 
either to Chinese Tibet or to Kashmir; but to take 
in both these termini in one journey is a more difficult 
problem. That was what I wished to accomplish, and 
to have come down again from the Chinese border 
towards Simla, and then gone up to Kashmir by one 
of the directer routes would have brought me into the 
region of the Lidian monsoon at a season when it was 
at its height, and when it would have rendered hill tra- 
velling almost impossible for me. What then seemed 
the proper thing for me to do, after touching the terri- 
tory of the Grand Lama, was to keep as high up as 
possible among the inner Himaliya, and to see if I 
could reach Kashmir in that wa}% without descending 
either into hot or rainy regions. I could not get any 
information as to considerable portions of my proposed 
march ; but, as it turned out, I was able to go all the 
way from Shipki in Chinese Tibet to the Sind valley 
in upper Kashmir, along the whole line of the Western 



66 THE ABODE OF SNO W. 

Himaliya, if not exactly over the tops of them, yet 
something very hke that, through a series of elevated 
valle\'s, for the most part about 12,000 feet high, with 
passes ranging up to 18,000 feet. Thus, passing 
through Hangrang, Spiti, Lahaul, Zanskar, Suru, and 
Dras, I never required to descend below 10,000 feet, 
and very seldom below 12,000; and, though travelling 
-in the months of the Indian monsoon, I met with 
hardly any rain, and enjoyed a most bracing and ex- 
hilarating Climate, together with the great privilege of 
beholding the wildest, sublimest scenery of the Hima- 
liya, and making acquaintance with the most secluded 
and primitive of its people. 

I must hurry on, however, to the events of my own 
journex'; but before treating of them, it may be well, in 
order to make these events intelligible, to say some- 
thing about what is necessary for travellers in the 
Himaliya. Journeying among these giant mountains is 
a somewiiat serious business, and yet it is not so serious 
as it probably appears to those who have had no ex- 
perience of it. In Switzerland, when essaying icy peaks 
and crossing snowy passes, we never get farther off than 
a day or two from some grand hotel, where all the com- 
forts, and many of the luxuries, of civilisation are to be 
found; and even then considerable preparations have 
to be made for remaining two or three days be\-ond 
human habitations, and for sleeping in a cave or hollow 
of the rock. But for a journey like mine, in the inner 
Himali\-a, extending over months, the preparations 
which have to be made are of rather an alarming kind. 
House, furniture, kitchen, cooking-pots, bed, bedding, a 
certain proportion of our food, and all our potables, ex- 
cept v/ater, have to be carried with us, for the most of 
the way on the shoulders of men or women; and, in my 
•xase, the affair was complicated b}' my having to be 



SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 67 

carried also ; for, at starting-, I was unable to walk a 
hundred yards, or to mount a horse. Almost no bun- 
galows were to be met with beyond the first fourteen 
marches up to Pangay ; in a considerable portion of the 
country to be traversed the people will not allow Euro- 
peans to occupy their houses — and even if they did, 
motives of comfort and health would dictate a tent, ex- 
cept in very severe weather; for the houses are ex- 
tremely dirty and ill-ventilated, and the mountaineers 
are covered with vermin. Of course, too, one is far 
more independent in a tent; and there is no comparison 
between the open camp, under trees, or the protection 
of some great rock, and a low-roofed, dark, unventi- 
lated, dirty room alive with insects. 

A tent, then, is the first necessity to look after, and 
that matter is much simplified by the fact that, there 
being almost no level ground in the Himaliya, it is 
useless taking any tent but one of very small dimen- 
sions. The tremendous slopes and precipices of these 
mountains were not made for the large canvas houses 
which Indian officials carry about with them on the 
plains. I have travelled for a whole dav before findino- 
a piece of level ground the size of an ordinary drawing- 
room, and have had to pitch my tent in such a place, 
that two steps from my own door would have carried 
me over a precipice — a position evidently unsuited for 
somnambulists, and for travellers' of a very convivial 
turn of mind. Fortunately, when I told Lord Napier 
of Magdala of my intended journey, he said to me, 
" Have you got a tent yet.'* No. Then don't get one 
till you see the tent which I used in Abyssinia." This 
historical tent he kindly had pitched for me, and I got 
a facsimile of it made in Simla at the exceedingly 
reasonable price of 70 rupees (about £'j), my butler 
being a great hand at making bargains. It was made 



68 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

of American drill, with a double fly, which was invalu- 
able for keeping oft' rain and heat. Its floor, and up to 
where the roof began to slope, at three feet from the 
ground, was about eleven feet by nine, and its extreme 
height between seven and eight feet. It was supported 
by two upright bamboos and a bamboo across them fit- 
ting on iron spikes. Properly speaking, it had no walls, 
but rop^s attached to the outside of the inner fly, about 
three feet from the ground, gave it a perpendicular fall 
of that height. It had not a pyramidal, but a very blunt 
wedge-like form ; and the cloth of both front and back 
opened completely from the top to the ground, or could 
be kept quite closed by means of small hooks, while in 
both back and front there was a small upper window, 
with a flap to cover it. This habitation was so light 
that one man could carry it and the bamboos, while its 
iron pegs were not a sufficient load for one coolie, and 
it was wonderfully roomy — more so than tents of much 
greater dimensions and of more imposing appearance. 
It was a convenience, as well as a source of safety, to 
be able to get in and out of it at both sides without 
stooping down ; and its coolness, and its use as a pro- 
tection from the sun, were greatly enhanced by its 
allowing of either or both ends being thrown entirely 
open. I never fell in with any tent, except the model 
on which it was made, to be compared with it for com- 
bined lightness and comfort, and I have seldom found 
so pleasant a habitation. It is necessary to have iron 
pegs for such a tent, owing to the nature of the ground 
and the scarcity of wood in the high mountains ; and a 
double supply of bamboos should also be taken. A 
good thick piece of carpet, about three and a half feet 
long by two and a hjilf broad, is a great comfort, 
especially on snow. All jimcrack articles are utterly 
useless for the Himdliya, because everything gets 



SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 69 

knocked about in a fearful manner ; and as a good 
night's rest is of the utmost importance, I got Messrs 
Cotton & Morris of Simla to make for me specially one 
of their travelling-cots which take to pieces. It was 
composed of two short and two long poles of strong 
wood, which went into sockets in four thick strong 
wooden legs. When this was set up, a piece of strong 
carpet was stretched over it tightly in a peculiar way, 
which I have not space to describe. My table, which 
could also be taken to pieces, weighed only a few 
pounds ; and I took with me a light cane chair, which 
could always be mended with string, twigs, or some- 
thing or other ; but a folding Kashmir chair would have 
been much better. These things, with washing ap- 
paratus, a couple of resais or padded quilts, a plaid, and 
a waterproof sheet, were quite sufficient to start me in 
Himaliyan life so far as my residence was concerned. 
Some travellers take portable iron stoves with them for 
their tents, but I rather think the heat thus obtained 
unfits one for bearing the cold to which we are neces- 
sarily exposed. My tent allowed of a fire being 
kindled close to the entrance, when wood could be had, 
and I found it was only the damp cold of regions with 
plenty of wood that was injurious. For my servants I 
had a good rautl of thick lined cloth, which kept them 
quite comfortable ; and I cut down their .supply of 
cooking-pots and personal luggage as far as was at all 
compatible with their comfort and mine. 

As regards provisions in the inner and higher Hima- 
liya, the traveller will find that there are juniper- 
berries growing nearly as high as he is likely to camp, 
edible pines up to about 12,000 feet, and apricots nearly 
to 10,000. Wherever there are villages, milk, mutton, 
and coarse flour of various kinds are to be had ; but 
that practically exhausts the list of Himaliyan supplies, 



70 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

except for the sportsman ; and, on a long journey, 
hu'man stomachs desiderate a greater variety. The 
junipers are of immense size and powerful flavour ; but 
most people prefer to have their junipers by way of 
Holland or Geneva. There is prime mutton to be had 
in all parts of the mountains, not to speak of shaggy 
sheep about the size of reindeer ; but the acute hillmen 
are by no means fond of parting with it, and are apt to 
insist that they have nothing else to off"er you, either 
for love or money, except a fieshless lamb — evidently 
destined, even by nature, to an early doom — or an 
ancient ram which has been used for years as a carrier 
of burdens. As to milk, it is an innocent and excellent 
article of food ; and those whose stomachs dislike it 
when sweet, can follow the example of milk-drinking 
nations, and take it when it is sour and curdled, thus 
saving their stomachs a good deal of trouble; but it 
takes at least six quarts of milk daily to afford very 
scanty sustenance to a full-grown maji, and by the time 
the traveller begins upon the fourth bottle, he is apt to 
wish that it were something else ; and I suspect that, 
in these circumstances, and when seated on a bank of 
snow, even the sternest teetotaller would not be averse 
to mingling a little rum with his milk. The flour to be 
had is often very bad, being ill ground and mixed with 
dirt ; so it is expedient both to have some fine Euro- 
pean flour, and when we meet with good mountain 
flour, to take some of it on with us for the next few 
stages. Perhaps the best article of this kind to be got 
is the roasted barley flour which the hillmen take with 
them on their journeys, and which, with the aid of only 
a little salt and cold water, they make into a very 
eatable dough called suttu. The sportsman, however, 
can supply his pot with many tempting edibles. I 
know of no flesh equal to that of the ibex ; and the 



SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 71 

navo, a species of gigantic antelope of Chinese Tibet, 
with the barra-singJt, a red deer of Kashmir, are nearly 
equally good. Though these animals are difficult to 
get at, yet portions of them can sometimes be obtained 
from native shikarries ; and my Bombay servant, with 
his gun, supplied me with many pheasants and par- 
tridges — of which the Himaliya can boast the most 
splendid variety — and with any quantity of large, fat, 
blue pigeons, of which there are great flocks wherever 
there is a village with grain-fields round it. All the 
way from Kotgarh, four or five marches from Simla, to 
Chinese Tibet, and from thence to Suru^ a dependency 
of Kashmir, I did not find a single domestic fowl, and 
felt much the want of eggs. Colonel Moore and Cap- 
tain de Roebeck, whom I met at Kotgarh on their way 
back from Spiti, spoke of having made the acquain- 
tance, in that province, of some ver}- bony fowls, which 
required to be pounded with rocks in order to make 
them eatable ; but I believe these gentlemen must have 
eaten up all the fowls of Spiti, and put an end to the 
breed. Both the Hindu Kunaits and the Lama Biid- 
hists object on religious grounds to supplying travellers 
with eggs and fowls ; so it is not till one gets to 
Mohammedan Kashmir that these useful articles of diet 
are to be met with. Also, till near Kashmir the 
streams are far too muddy, rapid, and difficult of ap- 
proach, to afiford fish, though one traveller in a hundred 
may have sojne offered to him. A species of turnip is 
to be found at some villages, and potatoes and various 
vegetables are grown by the Moravian missionaries at 
Kaelang in Lahaul, and Pu in upper Kunawar ; but 
practically, as I have said, the traveller will find that he 
has nothing to depend upon except milk, mutton, 
coarse flour, edible pines, apricots, and junipers. The 
want of vegetables is most severely felt, owing to the 



72 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

acids which they supply ; but I found that dried apri- 
cots were an excellent substitute for them, especially 
the dried apricots of Baltistan, which. are highly valued 
by the hillmen, and may be purchased from parties of 
Balti's, or from the wealthier zemindars. The kernels of 
their seeds also are quite eatable, and, taken with the 
dried flesh of the apricot, make a combination not un- 
like that of almonds and raisins. It is well, however, 
to take a certain amount of compressed vegetables on a 
long journey into the Himaliya, and tins of soup con- 
taining vegetables will be found useful. Hotch-potch 
especially is of the greatest service, because by itself it 
affords a sufficient and cpmfortable meal, and it stood 
me in good stead when my people were all too much 
fatigued to have prepared any more elaborate dinner. 
There is, in fact, nothing like hotch-potch for the 
Himaliyan traveller; the only objections to it are its 
weight and bulk, when tins have to be carried by coolies 
for months. This difficulty I partially met by taking 
with me a quantity of the sotipe a rognon an gras of 
MM. Usines Chollet et Cie. of Paris. This soup, which 
as its name indicates, is composed of onions and rich 
meat, is in small oblong tins about the cubic capacity 
of an ordinary soup tin of one pound weight. Each tin 
contains thirty portions of soup in tablets, which only 
require to have boiling water poured upon them, in 
order to make a nourishing and very palatable soup. I 
scarcely think one portion will make a sufficient basin 
of soup as one takes soup on a journey, but one and a 
half will ; so that a single tin, wdiich might be carried 
in an outer pocket, provides a single traveller with 
abundance of soup for his dinner for twenty days; and 
I had one tin open for thirty- six days in August and 
September, when it had to go through a good deal of 
heat, without the last tablet used being in the least 



SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 



spoiled. Onion soup, I may mention, has been found 
of great use by Arctic expeditions in the extreme cold 
to which they are exposed. The few tins of preserved 
meat I took with me were of little use, for one wants 
more particularly to supplement the local supplies with 
light articles of diet ; but an exception should be made 
in favour of tins of half-boiled bacon, which are exceed- 
ingly acceptable in high cold regions. Tins of salmon 
arc a great stand-by, being invaluable for affording a 
substantial cold breakfast at the mid-day halt, when 
the traveller is as hungry as a hunter, and when, if he 
gives way to his inclinations, a pound tin will disappear 
before him in a few minutes. Tins of fresh white fish, 
and of any uncompressed vegetables, except, perhaps, 
peas, are of no use ; but Finnan or Findon haddocks 
are, with boiled fowl and small tins of potted meat, and 
of sardines preserved in butter. But it is evident that 
we are thus in danger of running up a train of fifty 
coolies, at least at starting, and it was only by the 
greatest care, both in choosing and in using these sup- 
plies, that I was able to start with little more than two 
coolies' loads of tins, and yet to keep coming and going 
on them for months. Skill of this kind can only be 
obtained by experience in travel, and it is essential, in 
order to make the supplies go any distance, peremp- 
torily to forbid one's servants to open a single tin with- 
out express permission. 

As twenty full quart bottles are about a coolie's load, 
it is advisable to be as discriminating in the selection 
and , use of potables as of edibles on a Himaliyan 
journey. Wine, to any extent, and beer, are out of the 
question ; for it must be remembered that it is some- 
times difficult to get even the dozen coolies which are 
required to carry one's tent and other necessaries ; and 
the duty of bigdr, or carriage, presses so heavily at 



74 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

times on the villages of the Himaliya, that it is but 
right for the humane traveller to avail himself of it as 
lightly as he can. Those who usually conform to the 
ordinary habits of civilised life, which are very well 
adapted for brain work and for sedentary habits, will be 
surprised to find how easily they can conform to a 
simpler regime in the Himaliya; for in the keen stimu- 
lating air of these mountains there is not only very little 
need for alcoholic stimulants, but also very little desire 
for them. 

However perfect our other arrangements may be, 
there will be little comfort on a long mountain journey 
without exceptionally good servants, v/ho will enter a 
little into the spirit of the journey ; and it is exceed- 
ingly difficult to get Indian servants who will do any- 
thing of the kind. As a rule, they do not like travelling, 
unless it be in the comfort and state of a Commis- 
sioner's or Collector's camp; and they have a great 
dread of cold regions in general, and of snow}^ moun- 
tains in particular. The consequence is, it is difficult to 
get respectable servants to go up into the mountains ; 
and Simla is famous for its bad servants; though I 
noticed that almost every station I came to deemed 
itself more unfortunate in that respect than its neigh- 
bours. The plague of servants, everywhere consider- 
able, has now become very serious in India. There has 
been no legislation of late years on this subject adapted 
to the circumstances of the country; and old arbitrary 
practices for keeping servants in order can be very 
rarely resorted to, and are not in themselves desirable. 
There has been too little care taken in valuing good 
servants, and too little trouble in having bad ones 
punished. The native Indian journals have some 
reason on their side when they argue that, if Ave are 
afflicted with very bad servants, the fault is much our 



SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 75 

own, inasmuch as we have made them what they are. 
I notice, however, that the earHest accounts of Anglo- 
Indian life speak of two very different t3^pes of ser- 
vants, very much corresponding to the two great t\'pes 
of the present day. The misfortune is, that since the 
Mutiny the number of servants of the good t}-pe has 
decreased, principally owing to our lessened family 
interest in India; while the bad servants have found 
increased immunity under the almost necessary but 
overdone protection of legal equality with their masters, 
and with the greater opportunities which they now pos- 
sess of moving from station to station, and of employ- 
ing each other's or forged certificates. But there are 
very good servants to be had still in India, and care 
should be taken not to confound them with the rascals, 
or to treat them with harshness and distrust. On this 
Himaliyan journey I was singularly fortunate. About 
a year before, after having been afflicted with some of, 
the worst servants to be found anywhere — men whose 
conduct would really have justified homicide— I found 
a treasure at Nasik, in the person of Silas Cornelius, a 
native Christian, but a Maratha from the Nizam's 
dominions, who had been brought up in the schools of 
the Church Mission near Nasik. In steadiness, in 
honesty, in truthfulness, in faithful service, in devotion 
to the interests of his employer, and in amiability of 
disposition, I never knew of any servant who surpassed 
or almost equalled Silas Cornelius ; and his good con- 
duct on my mountaia journey was the more remark- 
able, as he had beei> led into it step by step, as I myself 
had been, and would never have left Bombay on any 
such undertaking. "Very hard journey this, sir! very 
hard journey!" was his only remonstrance in even the 
worst circumstances ; and it was accompanied by a 
screwing of the mouth, which was half pathetic, half 



1^ THE ABODE OF SNO W. 

comical. Not that Silas was without his foibles. When 
he found himself in the mountains with a gun sluhg 
behind his back, and was made the shikar of the expe- 
dition, as well as my butler, this mild and amiable 
individual assumed a most warlike appearance and air; 
he tied up his moustache in Maratha fashion, and made 
the other servants call him Jemadar. He also became 
fond of too promptly ordering the coolies about, but as 
the hillmen paid very little attention to this, it did not 
much matter. The value of this butler was equalled 
by that of a very bright, intelligent little Kunait boy 
about fifteen, called Nurdass, whom I picked up at 
Shaso, close to the Chinese frontier, and who, as he 
spoke Tibetan and Hindusthani, as well as his native 
Kunawari, served me as interpreter on great part of my 
journey, besides being useful in a hundred different 
ways. These were the two gems of my small entoiwage. 
A Kunawar Munshi called Phooleyram, who went with 
me from Kotgarh as far as Kashmir, was chiefly of use in 
getting my tent and bed put up. The only other regular 
attendant I had was an Afghan cook called Chota 
Khan, or the " Little Chief," — a man of great size and 
weight, of rather bullying propensities, though very 
useful on a journey, who kept everybody except myself 
in awe, and who was afraid of nothing except of cross- 
ing dLJInila or twig bridge. Whenever a young lamb or 
ancient ram was brought to us for sale, the way in 
which Chota Khan bellowed out thunders of abuse 
(chiefly with an eye to the satisfaction of his own capa- 
cious stomach) was exceedingly useful, and really 
frightened the astonisTtied lainbadars. It was a great 
pleasure to everybody when we came to a jJiida, be- 
cause then the- giant died, the liero broke down utterly, 
and had to be silent for the rest of the da}-, — until in 
the evening, among his pots and pans, and after cutting 



SIMLA AND ITS CELEBRITIES. yj 

the throat of a sheep in orthodox Mohammedan fashion, 
with an exclamation which sounded much more hke a 
curse than a blessing, he became himself again. All 
the other people I required, whether coolies, guides, or 
yakmen, were had from village to village. At Simla I 
engaged Qight j'hampa7i-walla/is to carry me in a dandy; 
but after* five daj's this agreement was ended by mutual 
consent, and I depended entirely on people taken from 
stage to stage, and on ghiints and yaks. 

Thus it may be understood with what appliances of 
travel I started from Simla in the commencement of 
June ; but it-was not until after the experience of a few 
days' journey, and I got to Kotgarh, that I managed to 
bring things into order, and was able to cut down the 
twenty-eight coolies with which I started to about 
twelve (or doublfe that number of boys and women at 
half-pay), exclusive of those I might or might not need 
for my own carriage. 



'-% 






CHAPTER III. 

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 

The cut bridle-path, which has been dignified by the 
name of " The Great Hindusthan and Tibet Road," that 
leads along the sides of the hills from Simla to the Nar- 
kunda Ghaut, and from Narkunda up the valley of the 
Sutlej to Chini and Pangay, is by no means so exas- 
perating as the native paths of the inner Himaliya. It 
does not require one to dismount every five minutes; 
and though it does go down into some terrific gorges, 
at the bottom of which there is quite a tropical climate 
in summer, yet, on the whole, it is pretty level, and 
never compels one (as the other roads too often and too 
sadly do) to go up a mile of perpendicular height in the 
morning, only to go down a mile of perpendicular depth 
in the afternoon. Its wooden bridges can be traversed 
on horseback ; it is not much exposed to falling rocks ; 
it is free from avalanches, either of snow or granite ; and 
it never compels one to endure the almost infuriating 
misery of having, every now and then, to cross miles of 
rugged blocks of stone, across which no ragged rascal 
that ever lived could possibly run. Nevertheless, the 
cut road, running as it often does without any parapet, 
or with none to speak of, and only seven or eight feet 
broad, across the face of enormous precipices and nearly 
precipitous slopes, is even more dangerous for eques- 
trians than are the rude native paths. Almost every 
year some fatal accident happens upon it, and the 
wonder only is, that people who set any value upon 



VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEA TH. 79 

their lives are so foolhardy as to ride upon it at all. A 
gentleman of the Forest Department, resident at Nac- 
har, remarked to me that it was strange that, though 
he had been a cavalry officer, he never mounted a horse 
in the course of his mountain journeys ; but it struck 
me, though he might not have reasoned out the matter, 
it was just because he had been a cavalry officer, and 
knew the nature of horses, that he never rode on such 
paths as he had to traverse in Kunawar. No animal is 
so easily startled as a horse, or so readily becomes 
restive : it will shy at an oyster-shell, though doing so 
may dash it to pieces over a precipice ; and one can 
easily guess what danger its rider incurs on a narrow 
parapetless road above a precipice A'here there are 
monkeys and falling rocks to startle it, and where there 
are obstinate hillmen who will salaam the rider, say 
what he may, and who take the inner side of the road, 
in order to prop their burdens against the rock, and to 
have a good look at him as he passes. One of the 
saddest of the accidents which have thus happened was 
that which befell a very young lady, a daughter, of the 
Rev. Mr Rebsch, the missionary at Kotgarh. She was 
riding across the tremendous Rogi cliffs, and, though a 
wooden railing has since been put up at tha|fclace, there 
was nothing between her and the precipice, when her 
pony shied and carried her over to instant deaths In 
another cas-e, the victim, a Mr Leith, was on his marriage 
trip, and his newly-married wife was close beside him, 
and had just exchanged horses with him, when, in trying 
to cure his steed of a habit it had of rubbing against the 
rock wall, it backed towards the precipice, and its hind 
feet getting over, both horse and rider were dashed to 
pieces. This happened between Serahan and Taranda, 
near the spot where the road gave way under Sir Alex- 
ander Lawrence, a nephew of Lord Lawrence, the then 



8o THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

Governor-General. Sir Alexander was riding a heavy 
Australian horse, and the part of the road which gave 
way was wooden planking, supported out from the face 
of the precipice by iron stanchions. I made my coolies 
throw over a large log of wood where he went down ; 
and, as it struck the rocks in its fall, it sent out showers 
of white splinters, so that the solid wood was reduced to 
half its original size before it reached a resting-place. 
In the case of the wife of General Brind, that lady was 
quietly making a sketch on horseback, from the road 
between Theog and Muttiana, and her syce was holding 
the horse, when it was startled by some falling stones, 
and all three went over and were destroyed. Not very 
long after I went up tliis lethal road, a Calcutta judge, 
of one of the subordinate courts, went over it and was 
killed in the presence of some ladies with whom he was 
riding, owing simply to his horse becoming restive. An 
eyewitness of another of these frightful accidents told 
me that when the horse's hind foot got off the road, it 
struggled for about half a minute in that position, and 
the rider had plenty of time to dismount safely, and 
might easily have done so, but a species of paralysis 
seemed to come over him ; his face turned deadly white, 
and he sat on the horse without making the least effort 
to save himself, until they both went over backwards. 
The sufferer is usuall}^ a little too late in attempting to 
dismount. Theoretically, it may seem easy enough to 
disengage one's self from a horse when it is strugfrlino- 
on the brink of a precipice ; but let my reader try the 
experiment, and he will see the mistake. The worst 
danger on these cut roads is that of the horse backing 
towards the precipice; and when danger presents itself, 
there is a curious tendency on the part of the rider to 
pull his horse's head away from the precipice towards 
the rock wall, which is about the worst thing he can do. 



VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 8i 

The few seconds (of which I had some experience further 
on) in which you find yourself fairly going, are particu- 
larly interesting, and send an electric thrill through the 
entire system. 

I rode almost every mile of the wa}', on which it 
was at all possible to ride, from Chinese Tartary to the 
Kyber Pass, on anything- which turned up — yaks, zo-pos, 
cows, Spiti ponies, a Khiva horse, and blood-horses. 
On getting to Kashmir I purchased a horse, but did not 
do so before, as it is impossible to take any such animal 
over rope and twig bridges, and the rivers are too rapid 
and furious to allow of a horse being swum across these 
latter obstacles. The traveller in the Himaliya, how- 
ever, ought always to take a saddle with him ; for the 
native saddles, though well adapted for riding down 
nearly perpendicular slopes, are extremely uncomfort- 
able, and the safety which they might afford is consider- 
ably decreased by the fact that their straps are often in 
a rotten condition, and exceedingly apt to give way just 
at the critical moment. An English saddle will do per- 
fectly well if it has a crupper to it, but that is absolutely 
necessary. Some places are so steep that, when riding 
down them, I was obliged to have a rope put round m}' 
chest and held by two men above, in order to prevent 
me going over the pony's head, or throwing it off its 
balance. But on the Hindusthan and Tibet road I had 
to be carried in a dandy, which is the only kind of con- 
veyance that can be taken over the Hmialiya. The 
dandy is unknown in Europe, and is not very easil}- 
described, as there is no other means of conveyance 
which can afford the faintest idea of it. The nearest 
approach to travelling in a dandy I can think of, is 
sitting in a half-reefed topsail in a storm, with the head 
and shoulders above the yard. It consists of a single 
bamboo, about 9 or 10 feet long, with two pieces of 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



carpet slung from it — one for the support of the body, 
and the other for the feet. You rest on these pieces of 
carpet, not in hne with the bamboo, but at right angles 
to it, with your head and shoulders raised as high above 
it as possible ; and each end of the pole rests on the 
shoulders of one or of two bearers. The dandy is quite 
a pleasant conveyance when one gets used to it, when 
the path is tolerably level and the bearers are up to 
their work. The only drawbacks then are that, when a 
rock comes bowling across the road like a cannon-shot, 
you cannot disengage yourself from the carpets in time 
to do anything yourself towards getting out of the way; 
and that, when the road is narrow, and, in consequence, 
your feet are dangling over a precipice, it is difficult for 
a candid mind to avoid concluding that the bearers 
would be quite justified in throwing the whole concern 
over, and so getting rid of their unwelcome and painful 
task. But when the path is covered with pieces of rock, 
as usually happens to be the case, and the coolies are 
not well up to their work, which they almost never are, 
the man in the dandy is not allowed much leisure for 
meditations of any kind, or even for admiring the scenery 
around ; for, unless he confines his attention pretty 
closely to the rocks with which he is liable to come into 
collision, he will soon have all the breath knocked out 
of his body. On consulting a Continental savan, who 
had been in the inner Himaliya, as to whether I could 
get people there to carry me in a dandy, he said, "Zey 
vill carry you, no doubt ; but zey vill bomp you." And 
bump me they did, until they bumped me out of adher- 
ence to that mode of travel. Indeed they hated and 
feared having to carry me so much, that I often won- 
dered at their never adopting the precipice alternative. 
But in the Himaliyan states the villagers have to furnish 
the traveller, and especially the English traveller, with 



VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 



83 



the carriage which he requires, and at a certain fixed 
rate. This is what is called the right of bigdr, and 
without the exercise of it, travelling would be aln:iost 
impossible among the mountains. I also had a special 
pw'zvannali, which would have entitled me, in case of 
necessity, to seize what I required ; but this I kept in 
the background. 

The stages from Simla to Pangay, along the cut 
bridle-path, are as follows, according to miles : — 



Fagii, 


10 


miles. 


Taranda, . 




15 miles. 


Theog, 


6 


)) 


Poynda, 




5 „ 


Muttiana, . 


II 


s» 


Nachar, 




7 » 


Narkunda, . 


12 


>J 


Wangtii, , 




10 „ 


Kotgarh, . 


10 


»» 


Oorni, , 




5 „ 


Nii-th, 


1 12 


>■> 


Rogi, 




10 „ 


Rampi'ir, , 


12 


n 


Chini, , 




3 » 


Gaura, . . 


9 


if 


Pangay, 




7 » 


Serahan, 


13 


» 









This road, however, has four great divisions, each with 
marked characteristics of its own. To Narkunda it 
winds along the sides of not very interesting mountains, 
and about the same level as Simla, till at the Narkunda 
Ghaut it rises nearly to 9000 feet, and affords a gloomy 
view into the Sutlej valley, and a splendid view of the 
snowy ranges beyond. In the second division it de- 
scends into the burning Sutlej valley,- and follows near 
to the course of that river, on the left bank, until, after 
passing Rampur, the capital of the state of Bussahir, it 
rises on the mountain sides again up to Gaura. Thirdly, 
it continues along the mountain-sides, for the most part 
between 6000 and 7COO feet high, and through the most 
magnificent forests of deodar, till it descends again to 
the Sutlej, crosses that river at Wangtu Bridge, and 
ascends to Oorni. Lastly, it" runs from Oorni to Pan- 
gay, at a height of nearly 9000 feet, on the right bank 



84 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

of the Sutlej, and sheltered from the Indian monsoon 
by the 20,000 feet high snowy peaks of the Kailas, 
which rise abruptly on the .opposite side of the river. 

The view of the mountains from Narkunda is wonder- 
ful indeed, and well there might the spirit 

" Take flight ; — inherit 

Alps or Andes — they are thine ! 
With tlie morning's roseate spirit 

Sweep the length of snowy line," 

But the view down into the valley of the Sutlej is ex- 
ceedingly gloomy and oppressive ; and on seeing it, I 
could not help thinking of the " Valley of the Shadow 
of Death." The same idea had struck Lieut.-Colonel 
Moore, the interpreter to the Commander-in-chief, whom 
I met at Kotgarh, a little lower down, along with Cap- 
tain De Roebeck, one of the Governor-General's aides- 
de-camp. No description could give an adequate idea 
of the tattered, dilapidated, sunburnt, and woe-begone 
appearance of these two officers as they rode up to 
Kotgarh after their experience of the snows of Spiti. 
Colonel Moore's appearance, especially, would have 
made his fortune on the stage. There was nothing 
woful, however, in his spirit, and he kept me up half 
the night laughing at his most humorous accounts of 
Spiti, its animals and its ponies ; but even this genial 
officer's sense of enjoyment seemed to desert him when 
he spoke of his experience of the hot Sutlej valley from 
Gaura to Kotgarh, and he said emphatically, " It is 
the Valley of the Shadow of Death." I was struck by 
this coincidence with my own idea, because it was 
essential for me to get up into high regions of pure air, 
and I could not but dread the journey up the Sutlej 
valley, with its vegetation, its confined atmosphere, its 
rock-heat, and its gloomy gorges. I had a sort of pre- 



VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 85 

cognition that some special danger was before me, and 
was even alarmed by an old man, whose parting bene- 
diction to us ^was, " Take care of the bridges beyond 
Nachar." This was something like, " Beware the pine- 
tree's withered branch," and I began to have gloomy 
doubts about my capacity for getting high enough. Mr 
Rebsch, the amiable and talented head of the Kotgarh 
Mission (of which establishment I hope elsewhere to 
give a fuller notice than could be introduced here), gave 
me all the encouragement which could be derived from 
his earnest prayers for my safety among the Jiohe 
Gehirge. There were two clever German young ladies, 
too, visiting at Kotgarh, who seemed to think it was 
quite unnecessary for me to go up into the high moun- 
tains ; so that, altogether, I began to wish that I was 
out of the valley before I had got well into it, and to 
feel something like a fated pilgrim who was going to 
some unknown doom. 

Excelsior, however, was my unalterable motto, as I 
immediately endeavoured to prove by descending some 
thousand feet into the hot Sutlej valley, in spite of all 
the attractions of Kotgarh. I shall say very little about 
the journey up to Chini, as it is so often undertaken, but 
may mention two incidents which occurred upon it. 
Between Nirth and Rampur the heat was so intense, 
close, and suffocating, that I travelled by night, with 
torches ; and stopping to rest a little, about midnight, 
I was accosted by a native gentleman, who came out of 
the darkness, seated himself behind me, and said in 
English, "Who are you?" I had a suspicion who my 
friend was, but put a similar question to him ; on which 
he replied,- not without a certain dignity, " I am the 
Rajah of Bussahir." This Bussaliir, which includes 
Kunawar, and extends up the Sutlej valley to Chinese 
Tibet, is the state in which I was travelling. Its pro- 



86 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

ducts are opium, grain, and woollen manufactures, and it 
has a population of 90,000 and nominal revenue of 
50,000 rupees ; but the sums drawn from it in one way 
or another, by Government officers, must considerably 
exceed that amount. Its rajah was exceedingly affable; 
and his convivial habits are so well known, and have 
been so often alluded to, that I hope there is no harm 
in saying that on this occasion he was not untrue to his 
character. I found him, however, to be a very agree- 
able man, and he is extremely well-meaning'^ — so much 
so, as to be desirous of laying down his sovereignty if 
only the British Government would be good enough to 
accept it from him, and give him a pension instead. 
But there are much worse governed states than Bussa- 
hir, notwithstanding the effects on its amiable and in- 
telligent rajah of a partial and ill-adjusted English 
education, in which undue importance was assigned to 
the use of brandy. He caused some alarm among my 
people by insisting on handling my revolver, which was 
loaded ; but he soon showed that he knew how to use 
it with extraordinary skill ; for, on a lighted candle being 
put up for him to fire at, about thirty paces off, though he 
could scarcely stand by this time, yet he managed, 
somehow or other, to prop himself up against a tree, 
and snuffed out the candle at the first shot. On the 
whole, the rajah made a very favourable impression upon 
me, despite his peculiarity, if such it may be called ; and 
my nocturnal interview with him, under huge trees, in 
the middle of a dark wet night, remains a very curious 
and pleasant recollection. 

The other incident was of a more serious character, and 
illustrated a danger which every year carries off a certain 
number of the hillmen. Standing below the bungalow 
at Scrahan, I noticed some men, who were ascending to 
their vTllage, racing against each other on the grassy 



VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 87 

brow of a precipice that rose above the road leading 
to Gaura. One of them unfortunately lost his footing, 
slipped a little on the edge, and then went over the pre- 
cipice, striking the road below with a tremendous thud, 
after an almost clear fall of hundreds of feet, and then 
rebounding from off the road, and falling about a hun- 
dred feet into a ravine below. I had to go round a 
ravine some way in order to reach him, so that when I 
did so, he was not only dead, but nearly cold. The 
curious thing is, that there was no external bruise about 
him. The mouth and nostrils were filled with clotted 
blood, but otherwise there was no indication even of the 
cause of his death. The rapidity of his descent throu;;h 
the air must have made him so far insensible as to pre- 
vent that contraction of the muscles which is the great 
cause of bones being broken ; and then the tremendous 
concussion when he struck the road must have knocked 
every particle of life out of him. This man's brother — 
his polyandric brother, as it turned out, though polyan- 
dry only commences at Serahan, being a Lama and not 
a Hindu institution, but the two religions are mixed up 
a little at the points of contact — reached the body about, 
the same time as I did, and threw himself upon it, weep- 
ing and lamenting. I wished to try the effect of some 
very strong ammonia, but the brother objected to 'this, 
because, while probably it would have been of no use, 
it would have defiled the dead, according to his religious 
ideas. The only other s}mpathy I could display was 
the rather coarse one of paying the people of Serahan, 
who showed no indications of giving assistance, for 
carrying the corpse up to its village ; but the brother, 
who understood Hindusthani, preferred to take the 
mone}^ himself, in order to purchase wood for the funeral 
pyre. Pie was a large strong man, whereas the deceased 
was little and slight, so he wrapped the dead body in 



THE ABODE OF SNO TV. 



his plaid, and slung it over his shoulders. There was 
something almost comic, as well as exceedingly pathetic, 
in the way in which he toiled up the mountain with his 
sad burden, wailing and Aveeping over it whenever he 
stopped to rest, and kissing the cold face. 

The road up to Chini is almost trodden ground, and 
so does not call for special description; but it is pictur- 
esque in the highest degree, and presents wonderful 
combinations of beauty and grandeur. It certainly has 
sublime heights above, and not less extraordinary 
depths below. Now we catch a glimpse of a snowy 
peak 20,coo feet high rising close above us, and the 
next minute we look down into a dark precipitous gorge 
thousands of feet deep. Then we have, below the 
snowy peaks, Himaliyan hamlets, with their flat roofs, 
placed on ridges of rock or on green sloping meadows ; 
enormous deodars, clothed with veils of white flowering 
clematis ; grey streaks of water below, from whence 
comes the thundering sound of the imprisoned Sutlej — 
the classic Hesudrus; almost precipitous slopes of 
shingle, and ridges of mountain fragments. Above, 
there are green alps, with splendid trees traced out 
against the sky ; the intense blue of the sky, and the 
dark overshadowing precipices. Anon, the path de- 
scends into almost tropical shade at the bottom of the 
great ravines, with ice-cold water falling round the dai*k 
roots of the vegetation, and an almost ice-cold air fan- 
ning the great leafy branches. The trees which meet 
us almost at every step in this upper Sutlej valley are 
worthy of the sublime scenery by which they are sur- 
rounded, and are well fitted to remiad us, ere we pass 
into the snowy regions of unsullied truth untouched by- 
organic life, that the struggling and half-developed 
vegetable world aspires towards heaven, and has not 
been unworthv of the fjrand design. Even beneath the 



VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 89 

deep blue dome, the cloven precipices and the sky- 
pointing snowy peaks, the gigantic deodars (which 
cluster most richly about Nachar) may well strike with 
awe by their wonderful union of grandeur and perfect 
beauty. In the dog and the elephant we often see a 
devotion so touching, and the stirring of an intellect so 
gi'eat and earnest as compared with its cruel narrow 
bounds, that we are drawn towards them as to some- 
thing almost surpassing human nature in its confiding 
simplicity and faithful tenderness. No active feeling of 
this kind can be called forth by the innumerable forms 
of beauty which rise around us from the vegetable world. 
They adorn Our gardens and clothe our hillsides, giving 
joy to the simplest maiden, yet directing the winds and 
rains, and purif)-ing the great expanses of air. So far 
as humanity, so dependent upon them, is> concerned, 
they are silent ; no means of communication exist be- 
tween us ; and silently, unremonstrantly, they answer 
to our care or indifference for them, by reproducing, in 
apparently careless abundance, their more beautiful or 
noxious forms. But we cannot say that they are not 
sentient, or even conscious beings. The expanding of 
flowers to the light, and the contraction of some to the 
touch, indicate a highly sentient nature ; and in the 
slow, cruel action of carnivorous plants, there is some- 
thing approaching to the fierce instincts of the brute 
world. Wordsworth, than whom no poet more pro- 
foundly understood the life of nature, touched on this 
subject v/hen he said — 

" Through primrose turfs, in that sweet bower, 
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths ; 
And 'tis my faitlr that every flower 
Enjoys the air it breathes. 



90 ^ THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

" The budding twigs spread out their fan 
To catch the breezy air; 
And I must think, do all I can, 
That there was pleasure there." 

If anything of this kind exists, how great and grave 
must be the sentient feehng of the mighty pines and 
cedars of the Himahya ! There is a considerable 
variety of them, — as the Pimis excelsa, or the " weeping 
fir," which, though beautiful, is hardly deserving of its 
aspiring name ; the Pinus longifolia^ or Cheel tree, the 
most abundant of all ; the Pimts Khiitrow, or Picea 
Morinda, which almost rivals the deodars in height ; 
and the Pinus Morinda, or Abies Pindrow, the "silver 
fir," which attains the greatest height of all. But, ex- 
celling all these, is the Cedriis deodara, the Deodar or 
Kedron tree. There was something very grand about 
these cedars of the Sutlej valley, sometimes forty feet in 
circumference, and rising almost to two hundred feet, or 
half the height of St Paul's, on nearly precipitous slopes, 
and on the scantiest soil, yet losing no line of beauty in 
their stems and their graceful pendant branches, and 
with their tapering stems and green arrowy spikes 
covered by a clinging trellis-work of Virginia creepers 
and clematis still in white bloom. These silent giants 
of a world which is not our own, but v^'hich we carelessly 
use as our urgent wants demand, had owed nothing to 
the cultivating care of man. Fed by the snow-rills, and 
by the dead lichens and strong grass which once found 
life on the debris of gneiss and mica-slate, undisturbed 
by the grubbing of wild animals, and as undesirable in 
their tough green wood when young as unavailable in 
their fuller growth for the use of the puny race of man- 
kind which grew up around them, they were free, for 
countless centuries, to seek air and light and moisture, 
and to attain the perfect stature which tiiey now pre- 



VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 91 

sent, but which is unhkely to be continued now that 
they are exposed to the axes of human beings who can 
turn them " to use." If, as the Singalese assert, the 
cocoa-nut palm withers away when beyond the reach of 
the human voice, it is easy to conceive how the majestic 
deodar must deh'ght in being beyond our babblement. 
Had Camoens seen this cedar, he might have said 
of it, even more appropriately than he has done of the 
cypress, that it may be a 

" Preacher to the wise, 
Lessening from earth her spiral honours rise, 
Till, as a spear-point reared, the topmost spray 
Points to the Eden of eternal day." 

The view from Chini and Pangay of the Raldung 
Kailas, one portion of the great Indian Kailas, or 
Abode of the Gods, is very magnificent; but I shall 
speak of that when treating generally of the various 
groups of the higher Himaliya. At Pangay there is a ' 
large good bungalow; and the Hindiisthan and Tibet 
road there comes to an end, so far as it is a cut road, 
or, indeed, a path on which labour of any kind is ex- 
pended. It is entirely protected by the Kailas from 
the Indian monsoon ; and I found a portion of it occu- 
pied by Captain and Mrs Henderson, who wisely pre- 
ferred a stay there to one in the more exposed and 
unhealthy hill-stations, though it was so far from 
societ}', and from most of the comforts of life. The 
easiest way from Pangay to Lippe is over the Werung 
Pass, 12,400 feet; but Captain Henderson, on his re- 
turning from a shooting excursion, reported so much 
snow upon it, that I determined to go up the valley of 
the Sutlej, winding, along the sides of the steep but still 
pine-covered mountains on its right bank. So, on the 
28th June, after a delay of a few days in order to re- 



92 THE ABODE OF SNO W. 

cruit and prepare, I bade adieu to civilisation, as repre- 
sented in the persons of the kind occupants of the bun- 
galow at Pangay, and fairly started for tent-life. A 
very short experience of the " road " was sufficient to 
stagger one, and to make rae cease to wonder at the 
retreat of two young cavalry officers I met, a few days 
before, on their way back to Simla, and who had 
started from Pangay with some intention of going to 
Shipkj, but gave up the attempt after two miles' ex- 
perience of the hard road they would have to travel. 
The great Hindusthan and Tibet affair was bad 
enough, but what was this I had come to t For a few 
miles it had once been a cut road, but years and grief 
had made it worse than the ordinary native paths. At 
some places it was impassable even for hill-ponies, and 
to be carried in a dandy over a considerable part of it 
was out of the question. But the aggravation thus 
caused was more than compensated for by the magni- 
ficent view of snowy peaks which soon appeared in 
front, and which, though they belonged to the Kailas 
group, were more striking than the Kailas as it appears 
from Chini or Pangay. Those enormous masses of 
snow and ice rose into the clouds above us to such a 
height, and apparently so near, that it seemed as if 
their fall would overwhelm the whole Sutlej valley in 
our neighbourhood, and they suggested that I was 
entering into the wildest and sublimest region of the 
earth. These peaks had the appearance of being on 
our side of the Sutlej, but they lie between that river 
and Chinese Tartary, in the bend which it makes when 
it turns north at Buspa ; they are in the almost habita- 
tionless district of Morang, and are all over 20,coo feet 
high. My coolies called them the Shurang peaks; and 
it is well worth while for all visitors to Pangay to go up 
a few m.iles from that place in order to get a glimpse 



VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 93 

of the terrific Alpine sublimity which is thus disclosed, 
and which has all the more effect as it is seen ere ves^e- 
tation ceases, and through the branches of splendid and 
beautiful trees. 

At Rarang, whicli made a lialf day's journey, the 
extreme violence of the Himaliyan wind, which blows 
usually throughout the day, but most fortunately dies 
away at night, led me to camp in a sheltered and 
beautiful spot, on a terraced field, under walnut and 
apricot trees, and wnth the Kailas rising before my tent 
on the other side of the Sutlej. Every now and then 
in the afternoon, and when the morning sun began to 
warm its snows, avalanches shot down the scarred sides 
of the Kailas ; and when their roar ceased, and the wind 
died away a little, I could hear the soft sound of the 
waving cascades of white foam — some of which must 
have rivalled the Staubbach in height — that diversified 
its lower surface, but which became silent and unseen 
as the cold of evening locked up their sources in the 
glaciers and snow above. Where we were, at tlie height 
of about 9000 feet, the thermometer was as high as 70° 
Fahrenheit at sunset ; but at sunrise it was at 57° and 
everything was frozen up on the grand mountains op- 
posite. Though deodars and edible pines were 'still 
found on the way to Jangi, that road was even worse 
than its predecessor, and Silas and Chota Khan several 
times looked at me with liopeless despair. In parti- 
cular, I made my first experience here of what a granite 
avalanche means, but should require the pen of Bunyan 
in order to do justice to its discouraging effects upon 
the pilgrim. When Alexander Gerard passed along 
this road fifty-six years before, he found it covered by 
the remains of a granite avalanche. Whether the same 
avalanche has remained there ever since, or, as my 
coolies averred, granite avalanches are in the habit of 



94 THE ABODE OF SNOV/. 

coming down on that particular piece of road, I cannot 
say ; but either explanation is quite sufficient to account 
for the result. The whole mountain-side was covered 
for a long way with huge blocks of gneiss and granite, 
over which we had to scramble as best we could, in- 
spired by the conviction that where these came from 
there might be more in reserve. At one point we had 
to wind round the corner of a precipice on two long 
poles which rested on a niche at the corner of the preci- 
pice which had to be turned, and which there met two 
corresponding poles from the opposite side. This could 
only have been avoided by making a detour of some 
hours over the granite blocks, so we were all glad to 
risk it ; and the only dangerous part of the operation 
was getting round the corner and passing from the first 
two poles to the second two, which were on a lower 
level. As these two movements had to be performed 
simultaneously, and could only be accomplished by 
hugging the rock as closely as possible, the passage 
there was really ticklish ; and even the sure-footed and. 
experienced hillmen had to take our baggage round it 
in the smallest possible instalments. 

At Jangi there was a beautiful camping-place, be- 
tween some great rocks and under some very fine wal- 
nut and gjiezv (edible pine) trees. The village close b}-, 
though small, had all the marks of moderate affluence, 
and had a Hindu as well as a Lama temple, the former 
religion hardly extending any further into the Hima- 
liya, though one or two outlying villages beyond belong 
to it. Both at Pangay and Rarang I had found the 
ordinary prayer-wheel used — a brass or bronze cylinder, 
about six inches long, and two or three in diameter, 
containing a long scroll of paper, on which were written 
innumerable reduplications of the Lama prayer — "Om 
ma ni pad ma houn" — and which is turned from left to 



VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 95 

right in the monk's hand by means of an axle which 
passes through its centre. But in the Lama temple at 
Jangi I found a still more powerful piece of devotional 
machinery, in the shape of a gigantic prayer-mill made 
of bronze, about seven or eight feet in diameter, and 
which might be turned either by the hand or by a rill 
of water which could be made to fall upon it when 
water was in abundance. This prayer contained I am 
afraid to say how many millions of repetitions of the 
great Lama prayer ; and the pious Ritualists of Jangi 
were justly proud of it, and of the eternal advantages 
which it gave them over their carnal and spiritually in- 
different neighbours. The neophyte who showed the 
prayer-mill to me turned it with ease, and allowed me 
to send up a million prayers. In describing one of the 
Lama monasteries, to be met farther on in the Tibe'.an 
country, I shall give a fuller account of these prayer- 
wheels and mills. The temple at Jangi, with its 
Tibetan inscriptions and paintings of Chinese devils, 
told me that I was leaving the region of Hinduism. 
At Lippe, where I stopped next day, all the people ap- 
peared to be Tibetan ; and beyond that I found only 
two small isolated communities of Hindu .Kunaits, the 
one at Shaso and the other at Namgea. The 'gnew tree, 
or edible pine {Pimis Gerardina), under some of which 
I camped at Jangi, extends higher up than does the 
deodar. I saw some specimens of it opposite Pu^ at 
about 12,000 feet. The edible portion is the almond- 
shaped seeds, which are to be found within the cells of 
the cone, and which contain a sweet whitish pulp that is 
not unpleasant to the taste. This tree is similar to the 
Italian Pimcs pinca ; and varieties of it are found in 
California, and in Japan, where it is calted the ginko. 

The road to Lippe, though bad and fatiguing, pre- 
sented nothing of the dangers of the preceding day, and 



I \ 



96 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

took us away from the Sutlej valley up the right bank 
of the Pijar, also called Teti, river. In colder weather, 
when the streams are either frozen or verj/- low, the 
nearest way from Jangi to Shipki is to go all the way 
up the Sutlej valley to Pu,;. but in summer that is im- 
possible, from the size and violence of the streams, 
which are swollen by the melting snows. At this large 
village a woman was brought to meAvho had been struck 
on the head by a falling rock about a year before. It 
was a very extraordinary case, and showed tire good 
effects of mountain air and diet, because a piece of the 
skull had been broken off altogether at the top of her 
head, leaving more than a square inch of the brain 
exposed, with only a thin membrane over it. The 
throbbing of the brain was distinctly perceptible under 
this membrane ; and yet the woman was in perfect 
health, and seemed quite intelligent. I once saw a 
Chinaman's skull in a similar state, after he had been 
beaten by some Tartar troops, but he was quite uncon- 
scious and never recovered ; whereas this young woman 
was not only well but cheerful, and I recommended her 
to go to Simla and get a metallic plate put in, as that 
was the only thing wiiich could be done for her, and her 
case might be interesting to the surgeons there. 

But at Lippe it became clear to me that, while the 
mountain air had its advantages, the mountain w;iter, or 
something of the kind, was not alwa}'S to be relied upon, 
for I found myself suffering from an attack of acute 
dysenter\' of the malignant t}'pe. As to the primary 
origin of this attack I was not without grave suspicions, 
though far from being sure on the subject. At Pangay 
one day I congratulated myself on the improved state 
of my health as I sat down to lunch, which consisted of 
a stew ; and half an hour afterwards I began to suffer 
severely from symptoms corresponding to those caused 



VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 97 

by irritant metallic poisoning. I spoke to my servants 
about this, and have not the remotest suspicion of Silas; 
but it struck me that another of them showed a certain 
amount of shamefacedness when he suggested bad water 
as the cause ; and though Captain and Mrs Henderson 
had been living for a month at Pangay, they had found 
nothing to complain of in the water. It is very un- 
pleasant when suspicions of this kind arise, because it 
is almost impossible to disprove them ; and yet one feels 
that the harbouring of them may be doing cruel injustice 
to worthy men. But, some time before, I had become 
convinced, from a variety of circumstances, that drug- 
ging, which the people of India have always had a good 
deal of recourse to among themselves, is now brought 
to bear occasionally upon Anglo-Indians also, when 
there is any motive for its use, and whei^e covering cir- 
cumstances exist. It may seem easy to people who have 
never tried it, and have never had any reason to do so, 
to determine whether or not poisonous drugs have been 
administered to them ; but they will find that just as 
difficult as to dismount from a horse when it is going 
over a precipice. Such is the fact even where the poison 
is one which can be detected, but that is not always the 
case ; and, in particular, there is a plant which grows in 
almost every compound in India, a decoction of the 
seeds of one variety of which will produce delirium and 
death without leaving any trace of its presence behind. 
The pounded seeds themselves are sometimes given in 
curry with similar effect, but these can be detected, and 
it is a decoction from them which is specially dangerous. 
Entertaining such views, it appeared to me quite possible 
that some of the people about me might be disposed not 
so much to poison me as to arrest my journey by means 
of drugs, whether to put an end to what had become to 
them a trying and hateful journey, or in answer to the 



98 THE ABODE OF SNO W. 

bribery of agents of the Lassa Government, whose busi- 
ness it is to prevent Europeans passing the border. I 
don't suppose any one who started with me from Simla, 
or saw me start, expected that I should get up very 
far among the mountains ; and indeed. Major Fenwick 
politely told me that I should get eaten up. A nice 
little trip along a cut road, stopping a week at a bunga- 
low here and another bungalow there, was all very well ; 
but this going straight up, heaven knew where, into the 
face of stupendous snowy mountains, up and down pre- 
cipices, and among a Tartar people, was more than was 
ever seriously bargained for. 

I could not, then, in the least wonder, or think it un- 
likely, that when it was found I was going beyond Pan- 
gay, some attempt might be made to disable me a littie, 
though without any intention of doing me serious injury. 
However, I cannot speak with any certainty on that 
subject. If the illness which I had at Pangay was not 
the producing cause of the dysentery, it at least pre- 
pared the way for -it. What was certain at Lippe was, 
that I had to meet a violent attack of one of the most 
dangerous and distressing of diseases. Unfortunately, 
also, I had no medicine suited for it except a little 
morphia, taken in case of an accident. Somehow, it 
had never occurred to me that there was any chance of 
my suffering from true dysentery among the mountains ; 
and all the cases I have been able to hear of there, were 
those of people who had brought it up with them from 
the plains. I was determined not to go back — not to 
turn on my journey, whatever I did ; and it occurred to 
me that Mr Pageil, the Moravian missionary stationed 
at Pu, near the Chinese border, and to whom I had a 
letter of introduction from Mr Chapman, would be likely 
to have the medicines which were all I required in order 
to treat myself effectually. But Pu was several days' 



VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 99 

journey off, more or less, according to the more or less 
bad road which might be followed ; and the difficulty 
was how to get there alive, so rapidly did the dysentery 
develop itself, and so essential is complete repose in 
order to deal with it under even the most favourable 
circumstances. The morphia did not check it in the 
least. Chlorodyne I was afraid to touch, owing to its 
irritant quality; and I notice that Mr Henry Stanley 
found not the least use from treating himself with it when 
suffering from dysentery in Africa, though it is often 
very good for diarrhcea. 

The next day's journey, from Lippe to Sugnam, 
would have been no joke even for an Alpine Clubsman. 
It is usually made in two days' journey; but by send- 
ing forward in advance, and having coolies from Lab- 
rang and Kanam ready for us hklf way, we managed to 
accomplish it in one day of twelve hours' almost con- 
tinuous work. The pa':h went over the Ruhang or 
Rognang Pass, which is 14,354 feet high ; and as Lippe 
and Sugnam are about 9000 feet high, that would give 
an ascent and descent of about 5300 feet each. But 
there are two considerable descents to be made on the 
way from Lippe to the sum.mit of the pass, and a 
smaller descent before reaching Sugnam, so that the 
Ruliang Pass really involves an ascent of over 8000 
feet, and a descent of the same number. 

Here, for the first time, I saw and made use of the 
valc_arjwakl ox oX^Tibet, tlie Bos grtmniens, or grunting 
ox, the Bos poephagiis and the 7roi^ayo<; of Arrian. It 
certainly is a magnificent animal, and one of the finest 
creatures of the bovine species. In the Zoological 
Gardens at Schonbrunn, near Vienna, there are some 
specimens of yaks from Siberia ; but they are small, 
and are not to be compared with the great yak of the 
Himaliya, the back of which is more like an elephant's 



100 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

than anything else. The shortness of its legs takes 
away somewhat from its stature ; and so does its thick 
covering of fine black and white hair, but that adds 
greatly to its beauty. Indeed, it is the shaggy hair and 
savage eye of the yak which make its appearance so 
striking, for the head is not large, and the horns are 
poor. The tail is a splendid feature, and the white tails 
of yaks are valuable as articles of commerce. The zo-po, 
on which I often rode, is a hybrid between the yak 
and the female Bos Indiais, or common Indian cow. It 
is considered more docile than the yak, and its appear- 
ance is often very beautiful. Curiously enough, when 
the yak and the zo-po are taken to the plains of India, 
or even to the Kiilu valley, which is over 3000 feet high, 
they die of liver-disease ; and they can flourish only in 
cold snowy regions. I was not fortunate enough to see 
any of the wild yaks, which are said to exist on the 
plains of the upper Sutlej in Chinese Tibet, and in some 
parts of Ladak. I heard, however, of their being shot, 
and that the way this was accomplished was by two 
holes in the ground, communicating with each other 
beneath, being prepared for the hunter in some place 
where these animals are likely to pass. If the wild yak 
is only wounded, it rushes, in its fury, to the hole from 
whence the shot came, on which the hunter raises 
his head and gun out of the other hole and fires 
again. This rather ignoble game may go on for some 
time, and the yak is described as being in a frenzy of 
rage, trampling in the sides of the holes and tearing at 
them with its horns. Even the yaks of burden, which 
have been domesticated, or rather half domesticated, for 
generations, are exceedingly wild, and the only way 
they can be managed is by a rope attached by a ring 
through the nose. I had scarcely had time at Lippe to 
admire the yak which was brought for my use, than, the 



VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. loi 

man in charge having dropped this rope, it made a 
furious charge at me ; and I found afterwards that yaks 
invariably did this whenever they got a chance, I can- 
not say whether this was done because I was evidently 
a stranger, or because they regarded me as the cause of 
all their woes ; but certainly, as we went up that ter- 
rible, and apparently endless Ruhang Pass, with one 
man pulling at the yak's nose-ring in front, and another 
progging it behind Avith the iron shod of my alpenstock, 
the Bos grunniens had an uncommonly hard time of it, 
especially when he tried to stop ; he did not keep 
grunting without good reason therefore ; and I could 
not help thinking that my Poephagus had been per- 
fectly justified in his attempt to demolish me before 
starting. 

If my reader wants to get an idea of the comfort of 
riding upon a yak, let him fasten two Prussian spiked 
helmets close together along the back of a great bull, 
and seat himself between them. That is the nearest 
idea I can give of a yak's saddle, only it must be 
understood that the helmets are connected on each side 
by ribs of particularly hard wood. The sure-footed- 
nes-s and the steady though slow ascent of these animals 
up the most difficult passes are very remarkable. They 
never rest upon a leg until they are sure they have got 
a fair footing for it ; and, heavy as they appear, they 
will carry burdens up places which even the ponies and 
mules of the Alps would not attempt. There is a cer- 
tain sense of safety in being on the back of a }'ak among 
these mountains, such as one has in riding on an ele- 
phant in a tiger-hunt ; you feel that nothing but a very 
large rock, or the fall of half a mountain, or something 
of that kind, will make it lose its footing; but it does 
require some time for the physical man to get accus- 
tomed to its saddle, to its broad back, and to its delibe- 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



rate motion when its rider is upon it, and not in a 
position to be charged at. 

So up I went on a yak along a'most curious pathway 
which slanted across the face of an immense slate preci- 
pice. From below it appeared impossible for any man 
or animal to pass along it, and sometimes I had to dis- 
mount, and even the saddle had to be taken off my 
bulky steed, in order that it might find room to pass. 
From the top of this precipice there was a descent of 
about 800 feet, and then a tremendous pull up to what 
I fancied was the top of the pass, but which was far 
from being anything of the kind. The path then ran 
along a ridge of slate at an elevation of about 13.000 
feet, affording most splendid views both of the INIorang 
Kailas and of the great mountains within the Lassa 
territory. After a gradual descent, we came upon an 
alp or grassy slope, where we were met by people from 
Labrang and Kananj, all in their best attire, to conduct 
us the remainder of the way to Sugnam. These moun- 
taineers, some of whom were rather good-looking women, 
tendered their assistance rather as an act of hospitality 
than as a paid service ; and the money they were to 
receive could hardly compensate them for the labour of 
the journey. There is a Lamajmonastery at Kanam, in 
which the Hungarian Csomo de Koros lived for a long 
time when he commenced his studies of the Tibetan 
language and literature. It is well known now that the 
Magyars are a Tartar race, and that their language is 
a Tartar language ; but thirty years ago that was only 
beginning to appear, so Csomo de Koros wandered east- 
ward in search of the congeners of his countrymen. 
At that time Central Asia was more open to Europeans 
than it has been of late years ; so he came by way of 
Kaubul, and, on entering the inner Himaliya, found so 
many affinities between the Tibetan language and that 



VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 103 

of his countrymen, t?iat he concluded he had discovered 
the original stem of the Magyar race. Years were 
passed by him at Kanam, and at the still more secluded 
monastery of Rjngdom, where I found he was v/ell re- 
membered ; and Tie made himself a master of the Lama 
religion and of the Tibetan language, besides preparing 
a number of manuscripts regarding the Tibetan litera- 
ture. But this did not content him, for he was anxious 
to penetrate into Chinese Tibet as far as Lassa ; and 
finding all his efforts to do so from Kunawar were frus- 
trated, he went down into India, and ascended the 
Himaliya again at Darjiling, with the intention of pene- 
trating into Tibet from that point in disguise. At Dar- 
jiling, however, he died suddenly — whether from the 
effects of passing through the Terai, or from poison, or 
from what cause, no one can say, nor have I been able 
to learn what became of his manuscripts. I suppose 
nobody at Darjiling knew anything about him ; and Dr 
Stoliczka told me he had met some Hungarians who 
had come to India in search of their lost relative Csomo, ] 
and it was only by some accident he was able to tell ) 
them where the Hungarian they sought was buried../ 
Csomo de Koros published at Calcutta a Tibetan ) ^\ 
Grammar in English, and also a Tibetan-English Die- ' 
tionary ; but he had so far been anticipated by J. J. / v 
Schniidt, who issued at Leipsic, in 1841, a "TibetTsc^^ 
Deutsches Worterbuch, nebst Deutschem Wortregister." 
This Schmidt was a merchant in Russia, at Sarepta, 
neai- the Volga, where he learned the Mongolian lan- 
guage, and then, from the Mongolian Lamas, acquired 
the Tibetan, after which the Russian Government called 
him to St Petersburg, where he published Mongolian 
and Tibetan Grammars. A small but convenient litho- ^j*") 
graphed Tibetan Grammar in English, and a Tibetan- \\ 
English Vocabulary, were prepared some years ago by 



I04 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



the Rev. Mr Jaschke, of the Moravian Mission at Kae- 
lang, in Lahoul ; but the latter of these will ere long be 
superseded by the .elaborate and most valuable Tibetan- 
German and Tibetan-English Dictionaries, with registers, 
which this gentleman is now preparing and passing 
through the press from his present residence at Herrn- 
hut, in Saxony, the original, and central settlement of 
the Moravian Brethren. I had the pleasure of meeting 
with Herr Jaschke at Herrnhut a short time ago, and 
found him far advanced with his Dictionaries ; and may 
mention that sheets of them, so far as they have been 
printed, are to be found in the East India Office Library. 
But we are not at Herrnhut just now, but on a cold 
windy plateau 13,000 feet high, with a gradual de- 
scent before us to some white granite and mica-slate 
precipices, which have to be painfully climbed up ; while 
beyond, a steep and terribly long ascent leads up to a 
great bank of snow, which must be crossed before it 
is possible to commence the 5500 feet of descent upon 
^lignam. Feeling myself becoming weaker every hour, 
I must confess that my heart almost failed me at this 
prospect ; but to have remained at that altitude in the 
state I was in would have been death ; so, after hastily 
drinking some milk, which the pretty Kanam women 
had been considerate enough to bring with them, we 
pushed on. No yaks could go up the white precipice, 
and there was nothing for it there but climbing with 
such aid as ropes could give. High as we. were, the 
heat and glare of the sun on these rocks was frightful ; 
but as we got up the long slope beyond, and approached 
the bank of snow, the sky darkened, and an intensely 
cold and violent wind swept over the summit of the pass 
from the fields of ice and snow around. There was no 
difficulty in passing the bank of snow, which turned out 
to be only patches of snow with a bare path between 



VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH 105 

them; but at that height of 14,354 feet, or nearly as 
high as the summit of Mont Blanc, with its rarefied air, 
the effect of the violent icy wind was almost killing, and 
we could not halt for a moment on the summit of the 
pass or till we got hundreds of feet below it. Hitherto 
I had been able to make little use of my dand}% but 
now I could do little more than stick to it. This was 
very hard on the bearers, who were totally unused to 
the work. One poor man, after a little experience of 
carrying me, actually roared and cried, the tears plough- 
ing through the dirt of ages upon his cheeks (for these 
people never wash), like mountain torrents down slopes 
of dried mud. He seemed so much distressed, that I 
allowed him to carry one of the kiltas instead ; on which 
the other men told him that he would have to be con- 
tent with two annas (threepence) instead of four, which 
each bearer was to receive. To this he replied that 
they might keep all the four annas to themselves, for 
not forty times four would reconcile him to the work of 
carrying the dandy. But the other men bore up most 
manfully under an infliction which the}^ must have 
regarded as sent to them by the very devil of devils. 
They were zemindars, too, or small proprietors, well off 
in the world, with flocks and herds of their own ; and 
yet, for sixpence, they had to carry me (suspended from 
a long bamboo, which tortured their unaccustomed 
shoulders, and knocked them off their footing every 
now and then) down a height of between 7000 and 8000 
feet, along a steep corkscrew track, over shingle and 
blocks of granite. How trifling these charges are, 
though the work is so much more severe, compared 
with the six francs a day we have to give to a Swiss 
poriatina or chaise a poi'teur, with three francs for back 
fare, and the six or eight francs for a guide on ordinary 
excursions! Meanwhile, the individual suspended from 



io6 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

the bamboo was in scarcely a happier plight. I could 
not help remembering a prediction of Lieutenant- 
Colonel Moore's, that if I ever did reach Kashmir, or 
anyzvhere, it would be suspended by the heels and neck 
from a bamboo, with tongue hanging out of my mouth, 
and eyes starting from their sockets. Things certainly 
had an unpleasant appearance of coming to that pass, 
and this reflection enabled me to endure the suffering 
of the dandy-wallahs with some equanimity. Fortun- 
ately, till we got near to Sugnam, there was no precipice 
for them to drop me over ; and when we at last reached 
one, and had to pass along the edge of it, I got out and 
walked as well as I could, for I felt convinced that out- 
raged human nature could not have resisted the temp- 
tation ; and I also took the precaution of keeping the 
most valuable looking man of the party in front of me 
with my hand resting on his shoulder. 

There is a route from Sugnam to Pu, by Lio and 
Change, which takes over two 14,000 feet passes, and 
probably would have been the best for me ; but we 
had had enough of 14,000 feet for the time being, and 
so I chose another route by Shaso, which was repre- 
sented as shorter, but hard. It was a very small day's 
journey from Sugnam (which is a large and very 
wealthy village, inhabited by Tartars) to Shaso, and 
the road was not particularly bad, though I had to be 
carried across precipitous slopes where . there was 
scarcely footing for the dandy-wallahs. My servants 
had not recovered the Ruhang Pass, however ; and I 
was so ill that I also was glad to rest the next day at 
this strange little village in order to prepare for the for- 
midable day's journey to Pu. Sha^Oj consists of only a 
few houses and narrow terraced fields on the left bank 
of the Darbung Lung-pa, with gigantic and almost pre- 
cipitous mountains shading it on either side of the 



VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 107 

stream. My tent was pitched on a narrow strip of 
grass amid large willow-trees, apricot-trees, and vines, 
which promised to bear a plentiful crop of large purple 
grapes. It was here I engaged the servic.es of the youth 
Nurdass, who proved so useful to me on my further 
journey. A boy, to be generally useful, had been 
engaged at Kotgarh ; and as no one except himself 
could pronounce his name or anything like it, he was 
dubbed "the Chokra," or simply boy. Of all things in 
the world, he offered himself as a dhobi or washerman, 
for certainly his washing did not begin at home ; and 
he disappeared mysteriously the morning after his first 
attempt in that line, and after we had gone only six 
marches. Some clothes were given him to wash at 
Nachar ; and whether it was the contemplation of these 
clothes after he had washed them — a process which he 
prolonged far into the night — or that he found the 
journey and his work too much for him, or, as some 
one said, he had seen a creditor to whom he owed five 
rupees, — at all events, when we started in the morning 
no Chokra was visible, and the only information about 
him we could get was that he was luther gya — " gone 
there " — our informant pointing up to a wilderness of 
forest, rock, and snow. Nurdass was a very different 
and much superior sort of youth. His father — or at 
least his surviving father, for, though inhabited by an 
outlying colony of Hindu Kunaits, polyandry flourishes 
in Shaso — was a doctor as well as a small proprietor, 
and his son had received such education as could be got 
among the mountains. The youth, or boy as he looked 
though fifteen years old, spoke Hindusthani very well, 
as also Kunawari, and yet was never at a loss with any 
of the Tibetan dialects we came to. He could go up 
mountains like a wild cat, was not afraid to mount any 
horse, and though he had never even seen a wheeled 



io8 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

carnage until we got to the plains of India, yet amid 
the bustle and confusion of the railway stations he was 
cool and collected as possible, and learned immediately 
what to do there. He was equally at home in a small 
boat on a rough day in Bombay harbour; and after see- 
ing three steamers, compared them as critically with 
one another as if he had been brought up to the iron- 
trade, though there was nothing of the conceited ;/// 
adniirari of the Chinaman about him, and he was full 
of wonder and admiration. It was really a bold thing 
for a little mountain youth of this kind to commit him- 
self to an indefinitely long journey with people whom, 
with the exception of Phooleyram, he- had never seen 
before. His motive for doing so was a desire to see the 
world and a hope of bettering his condition in it, for 
there was no necessity for him to leave Shaso. There 
was great lamentation when he left ; his mother and 
sisters caressing him, and weeping over him, and be- 
seeching us to take good care of him. The original 
idea was that Nurdass should return to the Sutlej valley 
along with Phooleyram, when that casteman of his 
should leave us, whether in Spiti or Kashmir. But in 
Chinese Tibet Phooleyram pulled the little fellow's ears 
one night, and, in defence ,of this, most gratuitously 
accused him of being tipsy, when, if anybody had been 
indulging, it was only the Munshi himself. This made 
me doubtful about sending him back the long way from 
Kashmir to the Sutlej in company with Phooleyram 
alone; and on speaking to him on the subject, I found 
that he was quite frightened at the prospect, and was 
not only willing but eager to go with me to Bombay, — 
both because he wished to see a place of which he had 
heard so much, and because the season was so far 
advanced he was afraid he might not be able to reach 
his own home before spring. So Nurdass came on 



VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 109 

with me to Bombay, where he excited much interest 
by his intelhgence and open disposition ; and I might 
have taken him on farther with me had he been inclined 
to go ; but he said that, though he was not afraid of the 
kala pant, or dark water, }-et he would rather not go 
with me then, because he had made a long enough 
journey from his own country, and seen enough wonders 
for the first time. Several distinguished persons on our 
way down wished to take him into their employment ; 
but one day he came to me crying, with his hand upon 
his heart, saying that there was something there which 
made him ill, and that he would die unless he got back 
to his own pahar, or mountains. He could not have 
heard of the hcinnveh of the Swiss, and I was struck by 
his reference to the mountains in particular. 7'here was 
evidently no affectation in the feelings he expressed ; 
so, knowing his wonderful cleverness as a traveller, but 
taking various precautions for his safety, which was 
likely to be endangered by his confidence in mankind, 
I sent him back from Bombay alone to the Himaliya, 
and have been glad to hear of his having reached Kot- 
garh, without any mishap, where, I am sure, the kin'd- 
hearted Mr Rebsch would see that he was safely con- 
voyed to his little village high up among the great 
mountains. 

Thus reinforced by a small but mighty man, we 
started from Shaso at five in the morning of the 4th 
July, and I managed to reach Pu at seven that night, 
more dead than alive. The distance was only fourteen 
miles, and the two first and the last two were so easy 
that I was carried over them in my dand}^ ; but the 
intervening ten were killing to one in my condition, for 
the dandy was of no use upon them, and I had to trust 
.entirely to my own hands and feet. These ten miles 
took me exactly twelve hours, with only half an hour's 



THE ABODE OF SNO W. 



rest. The fastest of my party took nine hours to the 
whole distance, so that I must have gone wonderfully 
fast considering that I had rheumatism besides dysen- 
ter}.', and could take nothing except a very little milk, 
/ either before starting or on the way. The track — for it 
■> could not be called a path, and even goats could hardly 
/ have got along many parts of it — ran across the face of 
\ tremendous slate precipices, which rose up thousands of 
\feet from the foaming and thundering Sutlej. Some 
rough survey of these dhimg or cliffs was made, when it 
was proposed to continue the Hindusthan and Tibet 
road beyond Pangay, a project which has never been 
, carried out ; and Mr Cregeen, executive engineer, says 
of them, in No. CLXVI. of the " Professional Papers on 
Indian Engineering," " in the fifth march to Spool,* the 
, road must be taken across the cliffs which here line the 
right bank of the Sutlej in magnificent wildness. The 
native track across these cliffs, about 1500 feet above 
the crossing for the Hindusthan and Tibet road, is con- 
sidered the worst footpath in Bussahir. This march 
will, I think, be the most expensive on the road ; the 
whole of the cutting will be through hard rock." Any 
one who has had some experience of the footpaths in 
Bussahir may conceive what the worst of them is likely 
to be, but still he may be unable to comprehend how it 
is possible to get along faces of hard rock, thousands of 
feet above their base, when there has been no cutting or 
blasting either. It m.ust be remembered, however, that 
though the precipices of the Himaliya look almost per- 
pendicular from points where their entire gigantic pro- 

f * Pii is the flame of this place, but the natives sometimes call it Pui, the 

i being added merely for the sake of euphony, as the Chinese sometimes 

change Shu, ^vater, into Shui. In the Trigonometrical Survey map it has 

. been transformed into Spucli. Where Mr Cregeen found his version of it 

I cannot conceive. 



VALLE V OF THE SHA DOW OF DEA TH. 1 1 1 

portions can be seen, yet, on a closer examination, it 
turns out that they are not quite perpendicular, and 
have many ledges which can be taken advantage of by 
the traveller. 

In this case the weather had worn away the softer 
parts of the slate, leaving the harder ends sticking out ; 
and I declare that these, with the addition of a few ropes 
of juniper-branches, were the only aids we had along 
many parts of these precipices when I crossed them. 
Where the protruding ends of slate were close together, 
long slabs of slate were laid across them, forming a sort 
of footpath such as might suit a chamois-hunter ; when 
they were not sufficiently in line, or were too far distant 
frorri each other, to allow of slabs being placed, we 
worked our way from one protruding end of slate to 
another as best we could ; and where a long interval of 
twenty or thirty feet did not allow of this latter method 
of progress, ropes of twisted juniper-branches had been 
stretched from one protruding end to another, and slabs 
of slate had been placed on these, with their inner ends 
resting on any crevices which could be found in the pre- 
cipice wall, thus forming a " footpath " with great gaps 
in itj through which we could look down sometimes a 
long distance, an4 which bent and shook beneath our 
feet, allowing the slabs every now and then to drop out 
and fall towards the Sutlej, till shattered into innumer- 
able fragments. It was useless attempting to rely on a 
rope at many of these places, for the men who would 
have had to hold the rope could h'^rdly have found a 
position from which to stand the least strain. Indeed, 
the worst danger I met with was from a man officiously 
trjnng to help me on one of these juniper-bridges, with 
the result of nearl}^ bringing the whole concern down. 
And if slabs of slate went out from underneath our feet, 
not less did slabs of slate come crashing- down over and 



112 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

between our heads occasionally ; for it seemed to me 
that the whole of that precipice had got into the habit 
of detaching itself in fragments into the river beneath. 
I may add, that having sent my servants on in front — 
to set up my tent and make other preparations in case 
of Mr Pagell being away, of which I had heard a ru- 
rnour — I was entirely in the hands of the Siignam bigar- 
ides^ of whose Tebarskad I hardly understood a word ; 
and that the July sun beat upon the slate, so that every 
breath from the rock was sickening. Beneath, there 
were dark jagged precipices, and an almost sunless 
torrent — so deeply is the Sutlej here sunk in its gorge — 
foaming along at the rate of about twenty miles an 
hour ; above there were frowning precipices and a 
cloudless sky, across which some eagle or huge raven- 
like Himaliyan crow occasionally jflitted. 

I saw this footpath in an exceptionally bad state — for 
it is only used in winter when the higher roads are im- 
passable from snow ; and after all the damage of winter 
and spring, it is not repaired until the beginning of 
winter. But no repairing, short of blasting out galleries 
in the face of the rock, could make much improvement 
in it. It was not, however, the danger of this path 
which made it frightful to me ; that only made it inter- 
esting, and served as a stimulus. The mischief was that, 
in my disabled and weak state, I had to exert myself 
almost continuously on it for twelve hours in a burning 
sun. The Sugnam men did all in their power to assist 
me, and I could not but admire, and be deeply grateful 
for, their patience and kindness. But the longest day 
has an end, as Damiens said when he was taken out to 
be tortured; and we reached Pu at last, my bearers, 
as they approached it, sending up sounds not unlike 
the Swiss j'ddel, which were replied to in similar fashion 
by their companions who had reached the place before 



VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 113 

them. Pu is a large villagej^ situated about a thousand 
feet above the bed of the Sutlej, on the slope of a high, 
steep mountain. I found that my tent had been pitched 
on a long terraced field, well shaded with apricot-trees, 
on the outskirts of the village, and that Mr Pagell, the 
Moravian jiijssionary, was absent on a long journey he 
was making in Spith Mrs Pa.gell, it appeared, was 
living with some native Christians near by, in a house 
guarded by ferocious dog's ;~^ut as she spoke neither 
English nor Hindusthani, only German and Tibetan, 
Silas had been unable to communicate with her, and the 
use of Nurdass as an interpreter had not then been dis- 
covered. This was serious news for a man in my con- 
dition;" but I was in too deathlike a state to do any- 
thing, and lying down in my tent, did not make any 
attempt to leave it until the day after next. 

When able, I staggered up to Mrs Pagell's residence, 
and explained the position I was in. She at once gave 
me access to her husband's store of medicines, where I 
found all I required to treat myself with — calomel, steel, 
chalk, Dover's powder, and, above all, pure ipecacuanha, 
which nauseous medicine was to me like a spring of 
living water in a dry and thirsty land, for I knew well 
that it was the only drug to be relied on for dysentery. 
This good MorayiarL sister was distressed at having no 
proper accommodation in her house for me ; but, other- 
wise, she placed all its resources at my disposal, and 
soon sent off a letter to be forwarded from village to 
village in search of her husband. Considering that, in 
ten years, Mrs Pagell had seldom seen a European, it 
was only to be expected that she should be a little flus- 
tered and at a loss what to do ; but her kindness was 
genuine, and I was greatly indebted to her. 

I had hoped, by this time, to be leaving the Valley of 
the Shadow of Death, its rock heat and its ever-roaring 

H 



114 THE ABODE OF SNOW, 

torrent, but had to remain in it for a month longer, 
lying on my back.' I reached Pii on the 4th July, and 
Mr Pagell did not arrive until the 25th of the month ; 
so that for three weeks, and during the critical period of 
the disease, I had to be my own doctor, and almost my 
own sick-nurse. Only those who have experienced acute 
dysentery can know how dreadfully trying and harassing 
it is ; and the servants of the heroic Livingstone have 
told how, in the later stages of it, he could do nothing 
but groan day and night. Then the ipecacuanha, which 
I had to take in enormous doses before I could contrive 
to turn the disease, kept me in a state of the greatest 
feebleness and sickness. The apricot-trees afforded 
grateful shade, but they harboured hosts of sand-flies, 
which tormented me all night, while swarms of the com- 
mon black fly kept me from sleeping during the day. 
There were numbers of scorpions under the stones around, 
both the grey scorpion and the large black scorpion 
with its deadly sting, of the effects of which Vambery 
has given such a painful account. Curiously, too, this 
was the only place in the Himaliya where I ever heard 
of there being serpents ; but long serpents there were — 
six feet long — gliding before my open tent at night. 
This was no dream of delirium, for one was killed quite 
close to it and brought to me for examination ; and a 
few weeks after, Mr Pagell killed another in his veran- 
dah. I was far too ill to examine whether my serpent 
had poison-fangs or not, and was fain to be content with 
an assurance that the people of Pii were not afraid of 
these long snakes ; but the Moravian found that the one 
he killed had fangs, and at all events it was not pleasant, 
even for a half-dead man, either to see them in moon- 
light, or hear them in darkness, gliding about his tent. 
One end of the field in front of me touched on a shiall 
forest, which ran up a steep valley, and was likely to 



VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 115 

harbour wild beasts. The position was lonely, also, for 
Ihad to make my servants camp a little way off, on the 
side away from the forest, in order not to be disturbed 
by their talking and disputing, or by their visitors; and 
so, weak as I was, they were barely within call even when 
awake. But I was much disturbed bythe singing and howl- 
ing of a number of Chinese Tartars who had come over the 
border on a pilgrimage to the Lama temple in Pu. These 
pious persons were silent all day till about two or three 
in the afternoon, when they commenced their infernal- 
revels, and (with the aid of potent liquor, I was told) 
kept up their singing and dancing for several nights till 
morning. In addition to all this, huge savage Tibetan 
dogs used to come down the mountain-sides from a 
Lama nuiinery above, and prowl round my tent, or 
poke into it, in search of what they could find ; and the 
letting them loose at all was highly improper conduct 
on the part of the virtuous sisterhood. One splendid 
red dog came down regularly, with long leaps, which I 
could hear distinctly ; and I had quite an affection for 
him, until, one night, I was awakened from an uneasy 
slumber by finding his mouth fumbling at my throat, in 
order to see if I was cold enough for his purposes. This 
was a little too much, so I told Silas to watch for it and 
pepper it with small shot from a distance ; but, either 
accidentally or by design, he shot it in the side from 
close quarters, killing it on the spot, its life issuing out 
of it in one grand, hoarse, indignant roar. Possibly it 
occurred to my servant that the small shot from a dis- 
tance might be a rather unsafe proceeding. As if these 
things were not enough, I had a visitor of another kind 
one night, who puzzled me not a little at first, I was 
lying awake, exhausted by one of the paroxysms of my 
illness, when a large strange-looking figure stepped into 
the moonlight just before my tent, and moved about 



ii6 THE ABODE OF Si\OW. 

there with the unsteady swaying motion of a drunken 
man, and witli its back towards me. My first idea was 
that this was one of the Chinese Tartars encamped 
beside the temple, who had come in his sheepskin coat 
to treat me to a war-dance, or to see what he could pick 
up ; and so I let my hand fall noiselessly over the side 
of the couch, upon the box which held my revolver. It 
was only natural that I should think so, because it is 
very rarely that any animal, except homo sapiens^ moves 
erect upon its hind legs, or, I may add, gets drunk. 
But still there was something not human in the move- 
ments of this creature, and when it began slowly to 
climb up one of the apricot-trees in a curious fashion, I 
could not help exclaiming aloud, " Good heavens ! what 
have we got now?" On this it turned round its long 
head and gave a ferocious growl, enabling me both to 
see and hear that it was one of the great snow-bears 
which infest the high mountains, but seldom enter, and only 
, by stealth, the villages. I thought it prudent to make no 
more remarks ; and after another warning growl, evi- 
dently intended to intimate that it was not going to be 
balked of its supper, the bear continued up the tree, and 
commenced feasting on the apricots. As may be sup- 
posed, I watched somewhat anxiously for its descent ; 
and as it came down the trunk, the thought seemed to 
strike it that a base advantage might be taken of its 
position, for it halted for an instant, and gave another 
warning growl. It repeated this manoeuvre as it passed 
my tent, on its four legs this time, but otherwise took no 
notice of me ; and there was a curious sense of perilous 
wrong-doing about the creature, as if it were conscious * 
that the temptation of the apricots had led it into a place 
where it ought not to have been. I did not mention this 
circumstance to Silas, for he was extremely anxious to have 
a shot at a bear, and I was just as anxious that he should 



VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 117 

not, because he had no sufficient quaHfication for such 
dangerous sport, and to have wounded a bear would 
only have resulted in its killing him, and perhaps sofne 
more of us. After that, however, though never troubled 
with another visit of the kind, I had a sort of barricade 
made at night with my table and other articles in front 
of the tent, so that I might not be taken unawares ; for 
my visitor was not a little Indian black bear, or even an 
ordinary Tibetan bear, but a formidable specimen of the 
yellow or snow bear [Ursus Isabellimis), which usually 
keeps above the snow-line, is highly carnivorous in its 
habits, and often kills the yaks of Pu, and of other vil- 
lages, when they are sent to graze in summer upon the 
high alp. Shortly after this I discovered that the way 
to deal with the horrible irritation of the sand-flies was to 
have my tent closed at night, and to smoke them out of it 
with burning fagots, which almost entirely freed me from 
their annoyance, and was an immense relief, though the 
plan had some disadvantages of its own, because I did 
not like to strike a light for fear of attracting the sand- 
flies ; and so the moving of creatures about and inside 
my tent became doubly unpleasant when there was little 
or no moon, for in the darkness I could not tell what 
they might be. 

It was in this way that I spent the month of July, 
when I had hoped to be travelling in Chinese Tibet. 
Trying as this combination of horrors was, I think it did 
me good rather than harm, for it made life more desir- 
able than it might otherwise have appeared, and so pre- 
vented me succumbing to the disease which had got all 
but a fatal hold of me. Moreover, the one visitor neu- 
tralised the effect of the other : you cease to care about 
scorpions when you see long snakes moving about you 
at night, and Tibetan mastiffs are insignificant after the 
visit of an Ursus Isabellimts. During this trying period 



ir8 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

Mrs Pagell paid me a short visit every day or two, and 
did all in her power to afford medical comforts. My 
servants also were anxious to do all they could, but 
they did not know what to do ; and I was scarcely able 
to direct them to do more than weigh out medicines and 
to leave me as undisturbed as possible, complete repose 
being almost essential to recovery. I could only lie 
there, remembering the lines — 

" So he bent not a muscle, but hung there, 

As, cauj^ht in his pangs 
And waiting his change, the king-serpent 

All heavily hangs, 
Far away from his kind, in the pine. 

Till deliverance come." 

After I had recovered, and we were away from PiS 
Mr Pagell told me, with a slightly humorous twinkle in 
his eye, and being guilty of a little conjugal infidelity, 
that one great cause of his wife's anxiety on my account 
was that she did not know where I was to be buried, or 
how a coffin was to be made for me. About the loth 
and 1 2th of July it looked very like as if the time had 
come for arrangements of that kind being made; and 
poor Mrs Pagell was, naturally enough, greatly at a loss 
what to do in the absence of her husband. Ground is 
very valuable at Pu, and difficult to be had, being en- 
tirely artificial, and terraced up on the mountain-side. 
For a stranger to occupy any portion of it in perpetuity 
would have been a serious and expensive matter ; and 
Moravian feeling revolted at the idea of grcwing vege- 
tables or buckwheat over my grave. Then, as every- 
thing should be done decently and in order, the ques- 
tion as to a coffin was very perplexing. Had the prac- 
tical missionary himself been there, he could at least 
have supervised the construction of one by the Pu car- 
penters; but his wife felt quite unequal to that, and was 



VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEA TH 119 

much distressed in consequence. Had I known of this 
anxiety, I could have put her mind at rest, because it 
never occurred to me that, in the circumstances, there- 
sponsibihty of making arrangements would fall upon 
any one except myself. Death never appeared to my- 
self so near as the people beside me believed it to be; 
and my determination was, if it became inevitable, to 
make arrangements to have my body carried up, with- 
out a coffin, high up the mountains above the snow-line, 
I had fully considered how this could have been ensured, 
and have always had a fancy, nay, something more than 
a fancy, to be so disposed of, far away from men and 
their ways. There are wishes of this kind which, I be- 
lieve, have a real relationship to the future, though the 
connection may be too subtile to be clearly traced. 
There is a twofold idea in death, by virtue of which man 
still attaches himself to the earth while his spirit may 
look forward to brighter worlds; and for me it was a real 
consolation to think of myself resting up there among 
the high peaks — • 

" There, watched by silence and by night, 
And folded in the strong embrace 
Of the great mountains, with the light 
Of the sweet heavens upon my face." 

But it had not come to that. By day I watched the 

sunbeams slanting through the apricot-trees, or looked 
up longingly to the green slopes and white snows of the 
"Windy Peak" of Gerard's map. Eve after eve I saw 
the sunlight receding up the wild precipices and fading 
on the snowy summits. Night after night the most 
baleful of the constellations drew its horrid length 
across a space of open sky between the trees, and its red 
star, Coi'- Scarpa, glared down upon my sick-bed like a 
malignant eye in heaven. And while the crash of fall- 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



ing rocks and the movements of stealthy wild creatures 
were occasionally heard, night and day there ever rose 
from beneath the dull thunderous sound of the Sutlej, 
to remiild me, if that were needed, that I was still in the 
Valley of the Shadow of Death. 



CHAPTER iX. 

CHINESE TARTARS. 

Just after I had managed to get the better of my ill- 
ness, but was still in danger from it, and confined to my 
cot, Mr Pagell arrived, having been recalled from a place 
in Spiti, ten days' journey off, by the letter which his 
wife forwarded to him. I found the Moravian mis- v 
sionary to be a strong, active, and cheerful man ; no | 
great scholar, perhaps, but with a considerable know- \ 
ledge of English, able to speak Tibetan fluently, ac- | 
quainted with the Lama religion, well liked by the 
people of the country, and versed in the arts which were 
so necessary for a man in his isolated and trying posi- 
tion. He had been established, with Mrs Pagell, at Pu V) 
for about ten years ; and, before that, had spent some 
years in the Moravian mission at Kaelang in Lahaul, 
whei^aLsQ. Tibetan is spoken. The house he had con- 
structed for himserjE7or, at least, had supervised the con- 
struction of, was small, but it was strongly built, the 
thick beams having been brought from a distance, and 
was well fitted to keep out the cold of winter, though 
not so agreeable as a summer residence. There was a 
sniall chapel in his compound, in which service was con- 
ducted on Sundays for the benefit of the few Christians, 
and of any strangers or people of the place who might 
choose to attend. Christianity has not made much pro- 
gress at Pu, but this is to be attributed to the entire 
contentment of the people with their own religion, 
rather than to any want of zeal or ability on the part 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



of the missionary. Besides himself and his wife, two or 
three men, with their families, constituted the entire 
Christian community ; and of these one was the here- 
ditary executioner of Kunawar, the office having been 
abohshed during the hfetime of his father; while of 
another, a true Tibetan, who acted as a house servant, 
Mrs Pagell said that he was a scJiande, or scandal, to the 
Christian name, from his habits of begging and borrow- 
ing money "right and left. The good lady's opinion of 
the people among whom she dwelt, whether Christians 
or Budhists, was lower than that of her husband ; and, 
in particular, she accused them of being very ungrateful. 
I saw a little to show me that they were so — and even 
Mr Pagell admitted that; but, as a rule, he was inclined 
to take their part, to regard them in a kindly manner, 
and to find excuses for their faults — even for their poly- 
andr}^— in the circumstances of their life. A youth, 
christened Benjamin, who accompanied us for some days 
on our further journey, seemed the best of the Chris- 
tians, and I think he was glad to get away for a time 
in order to escape from the hateful practice which Mrs 
Pagell compelled him to undergo, of washing his hands 
and face every morning. In language, dress, religion, 
and manners, the people are thoroughly Tibetan ; and 
though they are nominally subject to the Rajah of 
Bussahir, yet their village is so difficult of access that 
they pay little regard to his commands. Mr Pagell 

[estimated the population at about 600, but I should 
have thought there were more, and perhaps he meant 

. families. There is so much cultivation at Pii that the 
place must be tolerably wealthy. During my stay 
there, most of the men were away trading in Chinese 
Tibet and Ladak, and I could not but admire tlie.,won- 
derful industry of the women. There were some fields 
before my tent in which they worked literally day and 



CHINESE TARTARS. 



night, in order to lose no tirrie in getting the grain cut, 
and in preparing the ground for a second crop, one of 
buckwheat. Besides labouring at this the whole day, 
they returned to their fields after dinner in the evening, 
and worked there, with the aid of torches of resinous 
pine-wood, until one or two in the morning. The enor- 
mous flocks ofj3lue pigeons must have caused great loss 
in the grain harvest. There are vines at Pu, and very 
good tobacco, but when prepared for smoking it is not 
properly dried, and remains of a green colour. I found 
that this tobacco when well sieved, so as to free it from 
the dust and pieces of stalk, afforded capital smoking 
material, and I prefer it to Turkish tobacco. 

Mr Pagell's society assisted me in recovery, and I was 
soon able to sit up during the day in front of my tent 
in an easy-chair, with which he furnished me ; and on 
the 30th of July I was able to visit his house. But I 
knew that my recovery would go on much more rapidly 
if I could get up to some of the heights above the Sutlej 
valley. Though Pd is about 10,000 feet high, it is in 
the Sutlej valley, and has not a very healthy climate 
in August, so I was anxious to leave it as soon as at 
all possible. Seeing my weak state, Mr Pagell kindly 
offered to accompany me for a few days, and I was glad 
to have his companionship. On the afternoon of the 
5th August we set off for Shipki, in Chinese Tibet, with 
the design of reaching it in four easy stages. Three 
hours and a half took us to our first camping-place, on 
some level ground beyond Dab-Ung', and underneath the 
village of Dubling — places the names of which have been 
transposed by the Trigonometrical Survey. To reach 
this, we had to descend froni Pu tg,the^Sutlej, and cross 
that river upon a sangpa, or very peculiar kind of 
wooden bridge. The Sutlej itself is here known to the 
TiJDetans usually by the name of Sang-po, or " the 



124 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

river ; " and I notice that travellers and map-makers are 
apt to get confused about these words, sometimes setting 
down a bridge as " the Sangpa bridge," and a river as 
" the Sangpo river." I have called the-.__Namtu,iiridge, 
as it is named, beneath Pii peculiar; because, though 
about 80 feet above the stream, which is there over 100 
feet across, it is only about three or four feet broad in 
the middle, is very shaky, and has no railing of any kind 
to prevent one going over it, and being lost in the foam- 
ing torrent below. A Pui yak once survived a fall from 
this bridge, being swept into a backwater there is a little 
way down the stream ; but that was a mere chance, and 
the Bos grunniens can stand a great deal of knocking 
about. These bridges are constructed by large strong 
beams being pushed over one another, from both sides, 
until they approach sufficiently to allow of the topmost 
beams being connected by long planks. So rapid is the 

I river below this bridge that Gerard was unable to fathom 

' it with a lo-lb. lead. The path from it towards the 
Chinese frontier kept up the left bank of the Sutlej, and 
not far above it, over tolerably level ground. The pieces 

, of roclc in the way were unpleasant for dandy-travelling ; 
but it would take little labour to make a good road from 

- beneath Pu to opposite the junction of the Sutlej and 
the Spiti river, there being a kind of broad ledge all the 

j way along the left bank of the former stream, but, for 

the most part, a i&v^ hundred feet above it. Though 

easier for travelling, yet the Sutlej valley became wilder 

than ever as we advanced up it, though not so chaotic 

as lower down. On the side opposite to us there, were 

! almost perpendicular precipices thousands of feet in 

i height, and the clay and mica-schist strata (interspersed 

\ here and there with granite) were twisted in the most 

grotesque manner. Shortly before, a Pu hunter had 

been killed bv falling over these cliffs when in search of 



CHINESE TARTARS. 125 

ibex. Above this precipice-wall high peaks were occa- 
sionally visible, but in our neighbourhood there was no- 
thing but rocks and precipices, the foaming river, moun- 
tain torrents crossing the path, and a few edible pines 
junipers, and tufts of fragrant thyme. 

On the next day to Khalb, a short journey of four 
hours, the Sutlej gorge appeared still deeper and nar- 
rower. Quartz-rock became more plentiful, and, curi- 
ously enough, we passed a vein of very soft limestone. 
Some of the mountain streams were rather difficult to 
pass, and one of them had to be crossed on two poles 
thrown over it, though to have fallen into the torrent 
would have been utter destruction. At Khalb there is 
a most picturesque camping-ground, amid huge granite 
boulders, and well shaded by pines and junipers. It is 
opposite and immediately above one of the most extra- 
ordinary scenes in the world — the junction of the Sutlej, 
and the Lee or Spiti river. You cannot get near the 
junction at all, and there are few points from which you 
can even see it, so deeply is it sunk between close mural 
precipices ; but you can look down towards it and see 
that the junction must be there. These two rivers have 
all the appearance of having cut their way down through 
hundreds of feet of solid rock strata. Even below the 
great precipices they seem to have eaten down their way 
and made deep chasms. I do not venture to say posi- 
tively that such has been the case ; but the phenomena 
presented are v/ell worthy of the special attention of 
geologists ; because, if these rivers have cut the passages 
which they appear to have cut, then a good deal more 
effect may be reasonably ascribed than is usually 
allowed to the action of water in giving the surface of 
our globe its present shape. But, though not positive, 
I am inclined to believe that the Lee and the Sutlej 
have cut a perpendicular gorge for themselves from a 



126 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

little below Khalb down to the present level of their 
waters — a distance, roughly speaking, of about 1200 
feet, and this becomes more credible on considering the 
structure of the rock. Gerard fell into the mistake 
(pardonable in his day) of calling it " stratified granite." 
Across the Chinese border the mountains are rolling 
plains of quartz and whitish granite, and probably con- 
tain great gold deposits ; but at the confluence of the 
Spiti river and the Sutlej, the rock is slate and schist 
strata containing veins and detached blocks of granite 
and quartz, and also various zeolites. These slates and 
schists are for the most part rather soft, and the whole 
strata have been so much disturbed by the process of 
elevation that they are peculiarly open to the action of 
disintegrating influences. The weather has broken it 
down greatly wherever there is an exposed surface, and 
extremely rapid rivers might eat their way down into it 
with considerable ease. Even the veins and blocks of 
solid granite and quartz which are interspersed among 
the strata, are calculated to aid rather than to hinder 
such a process. Though the Himaliya are at once the 
highest and the most extensive mountains in the world, 
yet there is some reason to believe that they are among 
the youngest ; and this explains the present state of 
their narrow deep valleys. Their rivers carry out from 
them an immense amount of solid matter every year, 
but the process has not continued long enough to allow 
of the formation of broad valleys. Hence we have little 
more in the Himaliya than immense ravines or gorges. 
A valley there is something like the interior of the 
letter V, only the farther down you go, the more nearly 
perpendicular are its sides,, while above 12,000 feet there 
is some chance of finding open, rounded, grassy slopes. 
There are also some comparatively open or fiat valle5'S 
to be found above 12,000 feet ; for at that height, where 



CHINESE TARTARS. 127 

everything is frozen up during great part of the year, 
there are no large rivers, and no great action of water in 
any way. 

At this junction of the two rivers there is an outstand- 
ing end of rock wall, which is pretty sure in course of 
time to cause a cataclysm similar to what occurred on 
the Sutlej in the year 1762 below Kunawar province, 
when a shoulder of a mountain gave way and Tell into 
the gorge, damming up the stream to a height of 400 feet 
above its normal level. Similar events have occurred in 
the upper Indus valley, but these were caused by aval- 
anches of snow or ice. In the case to which I allude, 
and as will be the case at the junction of the Lee and 
Sutlej, the fall of a portion of the mountain itself caused 
the cataclysm ; and when the obstruction .gave way, 
which it did suddenly, villages and towns were de- 
stroyed by the tremendous rush of water. The Lee is 
almost as inaccessible and furious as the Sutlej, but it 
has calm pools, and its water is of a pleasant greenish 
hue, which contrasts favourably with the turbid, whitish- 
yellow of the latter stream. I may mention that I have 
written oi the Spiti river as the Lee, or Li, because it 
has got by that name into the maps ; but it is not so 
called by the people of the country, and the name has 
probably arisen from a confused localising of it with the 
village of \A or Lio, which is to be found a short way 
above the confluence. On both sides of the Chinese 
border they call the Spiti river the Mapzja JzazJiolmo. 
The former of these words means a peacock, but what 
the connection is I do not know. It must be admitted, 
however, that Mapzja Jzazholmo are not sounds well 
fitted to make their way with the general public, so I 
shall continue to speak of the Lee or Spiti river. I may 
also be excused from calling the Sutlej the I.angchJien- 
kJiabad^ or "elephant-mouth-fed" river, which General 



128 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

Cunningham asserts is the Tibetan name for the Sutlej ; 
though all the Tibetans I questioned on the subject 
spoke of it either as the Sangpo, or as the Singf Sangpo. 
In fact, there seem to be numerous local names for the 
rivers in that part of the world, and it would be hazard- 
ous to insist on any one in particular. 

From Khalb there are two ways of getting to Shipki ; 
the one over the_JECung-ma Pass, which is 1 6,000 feet 
high, and the other up the gorge of the Sutlej, across 
the face of its precipitous cliffs, and over the dreaded 
Oopsung Gorge. The latter road is never used v/hen 
the snow will at all allow of the high pass being crossed ; 
and — ^judging from what I saw of it afterwards, from the 
mountain Li'o Porgyul on the opposite side of the river 
— it must'HeliearTy'as bad as the path from Shaso to Pu. 
The cliffs, however, on which the path runs must be 
interesting to the geologist. They are often of a bluish 
and of a purple colour ; they present a brilliant and 
dazzling appearance from the zeolites with which they 
abound, and probably have other and rarer minerals. 
But the Kung-ma Pass, above the height of Mont Blanc 
though it be, is the only tolerable way of crossing_into 
Chinese Tibet from Pii ; and to toil over a i6,ooo feet 
pass lii one day is not desirable for an invalid, even 
though starting from a height of about I0;000 feet. So, 
after procuring yaks and coolies, for the passage into 
Tartary, from the villages of JChalb and Namgea, we 
resolved to camp some way up on the pass, and to take 
two days to the business. This can easily be done, be- 
cause at the height of about 12,500 feet there are a few 
terraced fields belonging to Namgea, and called Namgea 
Rizhing, with sufificient room to pitch a small tent upon, 
and with plenty of water and bushes fit for firewood. 

At this height the air was very pure and exhilarating, 
but the sun beat upon our tents in the afternoon so as 



CHINESE TARTARS. 129 

to raise the thermometer within them to 82° Fahrenheit ; 
but almost immediately after the sun sank behind the 
Spiti mountains, the thermometer fell to 60°. I do not 
think it got much lower, however, for at daybreak it 
was 54°. Evening- brought also a perfect calm, which 
was^ most welcome after the violent wind of the day ; 
but the wind rose again during the night, which for- 
tunately does not usually happen in the Himaliya, 
otherwise existence there in tents would be almost in- 
supportable. From the little shelf on which we camped, 
as also, to some extent, from Khalb and Namgea be- 
neath, the view was savage and grand beyond descrip- 
tion. There was a mountain before us, visible in all its 
terrific majesty. The view up the Spiti valley had a 
wild beauty of its own, and ended in blue peaks, at this 
season nearly free from snow ; but the surprising scene 
before us was on the left bank of the Spiti river, and 
on the right of the Sutlej, or that opposite to which we 
were. A mountain rose there almost sheer up from the ) 
Sutlej, or from 9000 feet to the height of 22,183 ^cs^; in \ 
gigantic walls, towers, and aiguilles of cream-coloured 
granite and quartz, which had all the appearance of 
marble. At various places a stone might have rolled 
from the summit of it down into the river, a descent of 
over 13,000 feet. In appearance it was something like 
Milan Cathedral divested of its loftiest spire, and 
magnified many million times, until it reached the 
height of 12,000 feet ; and I either noticed or heard 
severa-1 great falls of rock down its precipitous sides, 
during the eight days I was on it or in its immediate 
neighbourhood. Here and there the w^iite rock was 
streaked with snow, and it was capped by an enormous 
citadel with srnall beds of neve; but there was very little 
snow upon the gigantic mass of rock, because the furi- 
ous winds which for ever beat and howl around it allow 

I 



I30 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

but little snow to find a resting-place there. At Shipki 
they told- us that even in winter Lio Porgyul, as this 
mountain is called, presents much the same appearance 
as it had when we saw it. Half of it rests on Chinese 
Tartary, and the other half on Hangrang, a province 
which was ceded by the Chinese less than a century 
ago to the Rajah of Bussahir ; so that Lio Porgyul 
might well be regarded as a great fortress between Iran 
and Turan, between the dominions of the Aryan and 
the Tartar race. Even more remarkably than the 
Kailas, it suggested an inaccessible dwelling-place of 
the gods, a fortress shaped by hands, but not by human 
hands. And if the scene was impressive by day, it was 
absolutely overpowering at night, when the orb of night 
was slowly rising behind the dark precipices on which 
we midway stood. While itself unseen, the moon's 
white light illuminated the deep gorges of the Spiti 
river, and threw a silvery' splendour on the marble-like 
towers and battlements of Lio Porgyul. It did not at 
all appear as if any external light were falling, but 
rather as if this great castle of the gods, being trans- 
parent as alabaster, were lighted up from within, and 
shone in its own radiance, throwing its supernatural 
light on the savage scenes around. 

The word ma in Chinese means a horse, and it is pos- 
sible that the Kung-ma may mean the Horse Pass, in 
contradistinction to the path across the cliffs of the 
Sutlej, along which horses cannot go ; but I am by no 
means sure of this derivation. Be that as it may, horses 
or some animals are needed on the stiff pull up to the 
top of it in a highly rarefied air. Here we found the 
immense advantage of our A^JiS^ and " the comfort " of 
riding upon them. They grunted at almost every step, 
and moved slowly enough, but on they went steadily, 
seldom stopping to rest. Chota Khan, who had not 



CHINESE TARTARS. 



131 



been provided with a yalc, was extremely indignant at 
the exertion which his large body had to make, and I 
regretted not having been more liberal towards him. 
As we got up towards the 16,000 feet summit, the effect 
of the rarefied air compelled him to pause at every step, 
and quite bewildered him. He and one or two other 
of our people, also, began bleeding at the nose. These 
phenomena, together with the novel sight of a glacier 
hanging above us near the top of the pass, had such an 
effect upon the bold Afghan, that, at one point, he sat 
down and cried, lamenting his fate, and cursing every- 
body and everything in general, the word Sheitan, or 
" devil," being especially conspicuous in his language. 
That was only a momentary weakness, however ; for on 
getting down the Chinese side of the pass he quite re- 
covered his spirits ; he went down rollicking and sing- 
ing, and was the first to enter ^he dreaded Shipki, where 
some Tartar young women speedily brought him to his 
bearings and threw him into a state of great perplexity. 
It took us nearly ten hours to reach Shipki from 
Namgea Fields, and we started at four in the morning 
in order to escape the full effect of the sun's rays when 
ascending the pass, which involved no rock-climbing, 
but a continuous and very steep ascent up a corkscrew 
path, which was the best I had seen since leaving Pan- 
gay. Though the air, generally speaking, is quite cool 
and invigorating at these great elevations, yet the re- 
flected and radiating rock-heat is sometimes exceed- 
ingly oppressive ; and so powerful are the rays of the 
sun in summer, that exposure to them, or even to a 
good reflection of them, will destroy the skin of the 
hands or face of a European in five minutes, or even 
less. We were all a little ill after crossing this pass, 
and I ascribe that not so much to the exertion it re- 
quired, or to the rarefied air, as to the tremendous heat 



132 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

and glare of the sun on the south-east slope down to 
Shipki, which involves rather more than a mile of per- 
pendicular descent. 

A short way before reaching the extreme summit of 
the pass, we rested for a little on an open brow of the 
mountain covered with grass and flowers. The view 
over the Spiti ranges to the north-west was very exten- 
sive and striking ; for, though it was a land of desola- 
tion on which we gazed, it was under an intensely 
dark-blue sky ; it was beautifully coloured with snow 
and cloud, and variegated rock, and presented vast 
ranges of picturesquely shaped peaks, between two of 
which the 1 8,000 feet Manerung Pass could easily be 
discerned. Westward, over sections of the Sutlej valley, 
near Rarang and Pangay, the great peaks and snows of 
the Indian Kailas mingled with the clouds of the Indian 
monsoon, which were arrested on its southern side. 
Behind us, and overhanging us, were glaciers and snowy 
peaks. Then came the summit of the Kung-ma Pass, 
and to the north-east the vast citadel of Lio Porgyul. 
Though the view was limited on one side, yet it was 
much more extensive than any I have seen from any 
other Himali}'an pass, — even from the Shinkal, which is 
at least 2000 feet higher. An enormous semicircle was 
visible of grand precipices, high mountain peaks, and 
snowy summits over 20,000 feet high. Resting on the 
grass, looking on that beautiful }'et awful scene— on the 
boundless wild of serrated ridges, rock-needles, mountain 
battlements, storm-scathed precipices, silvery domes, 
icy peaks, and snowy spires — and breathing the pure, 
keen, exhilarating air,— it almost seemed as if, during 
my illness at Pvi, I had indeed passed from the tortur- 
ing life of earth, and had now alighted upon a more 
glorious world. But the Namgea women dispelled the 
illusion by bringing me blue Alpine flowers, reminding 



CHINESE TARTARS. 133 

me that I was still upon the sad star, the loveliness 
of which is marred by the dark shadow which hangs 
over all its sentient and conscious beings. "Our life is 
crowned with darkness ; " and it becomes not those who 
aspire to be worthy of that crown to seek it prematurely, 
while those the inclination of whose natures must draw 
them from the purgatory of earth to a lower and darker 
world, if there existence is to be continued at all, in- 
stinctively cling to the happiest life they can hope to 
know. But even earthly life, under certain conditions, 
has its intense enjoyments. It was an immense relief 
for me, after the Sutlej valley and its shadow of death, 
to feel my feet on the springy turf of rounded slopes — 
to find that I had room to move and breathe — and to 
see the lights and shadows chasing each other over the 
flowery grass. 

Before the last ascent, we passed beneath a consider- 
able glacier into a small but deep ravine, just above 
which there was a camping-place for travellers, but no 
wood and no water visible, though a stream from the 
glacier might be heard moving underneath the ground. 
This camping-place marks the boundary between Kuna- 
war and the Chinese territory ; and from there a gentle 
ascent, dififiicult only from the great rarity of the air, took 
us up to the extreme summit of the Kungma Pass, where 
there are the ruins of a Tartar guard-house, at which 
formerly travellers attempting to cross the Chinese 
frontier used to be stopped ; but as a European tra- 
veller makes his appearance at this gate of entrance 
only once in ten or fifteen years, it was obviously quite 
unnecessary to keep a permanent guard up there at the 
inconvenient height of 16,000 feet — and so the congenial 
business of stopping his advance has been deputed to 
the people of the large village of Shipki, which lies im- 
mediately, but nearly 6000 feet below. Fortunately 



134 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

there was hardly any wind ; for at these great heights 
exposure to a high wind for a few minutes may be fatal, 
so rapidly does it make the body inanimate. From this 
guard -house the view towards Tartary was perfectly un- 
clouded and clear. It presented to our view a great 
expanse of bare and rounded but smooth-looking hills 
fading away into the elevated rolling plains beyond. 
The appearance of Tartary is quite different from that 
of Kunawar and Spiti, and of the Western Himaliya in 
general. Except down at Shipki, not a tree was visible, 
and there were no high peaks or abrupt precipices. No 
snow was visible in Tartary beyond Li'o Porgyul, though 
the Shirang mountain, over which the road to Gartop 
goes, must be about l8,OGO feet high. The furze on 
these mountain plains was here and there of a dark- 
brown colour ; and when Alexander Gerard, a native of 
Aberdeenshire, saw it from a neighbouring pass in i8i8, 
he v/as at once struck by the resemblance of the furze 
to Scotch heather. Even " Caledonia stern and wild," 
however, has no scenes which could afford any notion of 
the wild sterility of these Tartar plains, or of the tre- 
mendous mass of Li'o Porgyul which flanked them on 
the immediate left. There is no descent in Scotland 
either to compare in utter wearisomeness to that of the 
6oco feet from the top of the Kung-ma down to the 
great village of Shipki, though, to do the Chinese justice, 
they must have expended not a little labour on the rude 
path which connects the two points. This path was too 
steep for riding down comfortably on a yak ; and even 
Chota Khan, despite his bleeding at the nose, declined 
the offer which I made him of the use of mine. So I 
had to endure more than the usual amount of bumping, 
in my dandy, and of being let fall suddenly and violently 
on the stony ground, owing to the two coolies in front 
occasionally coming down by ':he run. I did, however, 



CHINESE TARTARS. 135 

manage to get carried down, there being literally no 
help for it ; but the dandywallahs came to Mr Pagell 
next day and pathetically showed that gentleman the 
state of their shoulders. 

Chota Khan and one or two more of our servants had 
gone on in advance to Shipki, with some of the coolies, 
in order to have the little mountain tents ready for us 
on our arrival ; but that was not to be accomplished so 
easily as they expected. Instead of tents, a most amus- 
ing scene presented itself when we at last got down. 
But, in order to understand it, the reader must bear in 
mind that Shipki is situated on the very steep slope of a 
hill above a foaming river, and that it is by no means a 
place abundant in level ground. In fact, there is no 
level ground at Shipki except the roofs of the houses, 
which are usually on a level with the streets, and the 
narrow terraced fields, the entrances to which are 
guarded by prickly hedges or stone walls, or cJievmix- 
de-frise of withered gooseberry branches. You cannot 
pitch a tent on a slope, covered with big stones, at an 
angle of about 45°. Neither were the roofs of the houses 
desirable, because on the roof of every house there was 
a ferocious Tibetan mastiff,'' roused to the highest pitch 
of excitement by our arrival, and desiring nothing better 
than that some stranger should intrude upon his domain. 
Consequently the terraced fields presented the only 
available places for our tents, and they were clearly 
available, many of them being in stubble, while there 
was no immediate intention of digging up the ground. 
Of course a terraced field was the place, but here was 
the difficulty which threw Chota Khan into a state of 
amazement, perplexity, and wrath. A band of hand- 
some and very powerful young Tartar women — clad in 
red or black tunics, loose trousers, and immense cloth 
"boots, into which a child of five years old might easily 



136 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

have been stuffed — had constituted themselves the 
guardians of these terraced fields, and whenever Chota 
Khan or any of his companions attempted to enter, they 
not only placed their bulky persons in the way, but even 
showed determined fight. Woman to man, I believe 
these guardian angels could have given our people a 
sound thrashing ; and I afterwards found it to be a most 
useful goad for lagging coolies to remark that one Shipki 
woman could beat two men of Spiti or Lahaul, as the 
case might be. These angels in big boots were very 
good-humoured, and seemed to enjoy their little game 
immensely; but not the less on that account- were they 
pertinacious, and even ferocious, when any attempt was 
made to get past them. If catching a Tartar be a diffi- 
cult operation, I should like to know wdiat catching a 
Tartar young woman must be. When we arrived, Mr 
Pagell reasoned with them eloquently in fluent Tibetan, 
and they allowed the force of his argument to the extent 
of admitting that there was no spot for us at Shipki on 
which to pitch our tents except a terraced field ; but 
they parried the obvious conclusion by reminding him 
that there was a very nice little piece of camping-ground 
about half way up the six thousand feet we had just 
come down, and that it was little past the middle of the 
day. I myself tried gently to pass between them, with 
the most admiring smiles and affectionate demeanour I 
could summon up for the occasion, and in the circum- 
stances ; but though this seemed to amuse them much, 
it did not at all induce them to allow me to pass ; and 
when we tried other fields, either the same women or a 
fresh band opposed our entrance. Meanwhile, groups 
of men, on the roofs of houses and elsewhere, watched 
the operations without interfering. It really looked as 
if the intention was to compel us to go back from Shipki 
without allowing us to stay there even for a night. 



CHINESE TARTARS. 137 

There was much iiif^enuity in this plan of setting the 
Tartar damsels to prevent our camping. Had we used 
force towards these young persons, there would have 
been a fair reason for the men of the place falling upon 
us in a murderous manner ; and Mr M'Nab, the super- 
intendent of the hill states, had told m.e that one of his 
predecessors in office, who tried either to camp at Shipki 
or to go farther, very nearly lost his life there. Had I 
been alone, I do not know what might have happened, 
for, in my weak state, I was beginning to get irritated ; 
and it was fortunate I was accompanied by Mr Pagell, 
who took the matter quite easily, and said it would be 
necessary to respect the wishes of the people of the 
country. Fortunately, too, at this juncture, he recog- 
nised a Lama, for whom he had formerly done some 
medical service, and the Lama not only took our part 
generally, but also offered us a narrow field of his own 
on which to pitch our tents. There was a disposition 
on the part of the young Tartars to resist this also, but 
they were a little too late in making up their minds to 
do so ; for whenever the priest showed my friend the 
wall which was at the end of his field, our servants and 
coolies, appreciating the exigency of the occasion, made 
a rush over it and took immediate possession. 

We rem.ained at Shipki that afternoon, the whole of the 
next day^ and the greater part of the day after, making 
unavailing attempts to provide for farther progress into 
Chinese Tibet. • We should have been glad to go very 
lightly burdened, but none of the coolies or yakmen 
from Kunawar would accompany us a step farther. 
They said that their duty to their own State had com- 
pelled them to take us across the frontier to Shipki, at 
great inconvenience to themselves, for it was their season 
of harvest, and many of the men of their villages were 
away travelling on commercial ventures ; but that there 



138 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

was no duty resting on them to take us any farther, and 
they were afraid to do so, because they well knew that 
if they persisted in advancing with us, the Tartars would 
either fail upon them and kill them then, or do so on 
some future occasion when their business might take 
them across the frontier. We had no hold upon the 
Kunawar people for a farther journey ; it would have 
been most cruel and unjustifiable to have attempted to 
force them to accompany us, and they would listen to 
no offers of increased monetary recompense. The Tar- 
tars, on the other hand, were still more impracticable. 
They openly derided the idea of our going on into their 
country, and would not give us any supplies either of 
carriage or of food. On the whole, they were anything 
but civil, and at times it looked as if they only wanted 
a pretext for falling upon us ; but at other times they 
condescended to reason on the matter. They said that 
they were under express orders from the Lassa Govern- 
ment not to allow any Europeans to pass, and that it 
would be as much as their possessions and their heads 
were worth to allow us to do so. Death itself would not 
be the worst which might befall them, as there were 
certain dreadful modes of death, which I shall presently 
describe, to which they might be subjected. On my 
referring to the Treaty of Tientsin, which gives British 
subjects a right to travel within the dominions of the 
Celestial Emperor, and mentioning that I had travelled 
a great deal in China itself, they first said that they had 
no information of any such treaty having been concluded; 
and then they ingeniously argued that, though it might 
allow foreigners to travel in China Proper, yet it did not 
apply to Tibet, which was no part of China, and only 
loosely connected with that countr\-. When we pressed 
them for the reasons of this exclusive policy, they 
answered that thev were not bound to give reasons, 



CHINESE TARTARS. 139 

having simply to obey orders ; but that one obvious 
reason was, that wherever Englishmen had been allowed 
entrance into a country, they had ended in making a 
conquest of it. We had landed peaceably on the coast 
of India, and immediately proceeded to conquer the 
coast. We then took a little more and a little more, 
always pretending, in the first instance, to be peaceable 
travellers and merchants, until we got up to the country 
of Runjit Singh, and the next thing heard there was 
that we had taken Runjit Singh's dominions. Now we 
■wanted to travel in the country of the Sacred Religion 
(Lamaism) ; but the Tibetans knew better than that, 
and that the only safe course for them, if they wished 
to preserve their country to themselves, was to keep us 
out of it altogether. On this we remarked, that China 
had brought trouble on itself by attempting to exclude 
Europeans, whereas matters had gone smoothly after 
admitting them, and referred to Japan as an instance of 
a long-secluded country which had found advantage (I 
am not sure very much) from admitting Europeans; but 
they seemed to interpret this as a threat, and replied 
boisterousl}^, that they might as well be killed fighting 
us as be killed for letting us pass — there would be some 
amusement in that ; and if ever war came upon them, 
they were quite willing to engage in war, because, having 
the true religion, they were certain to conquer. This 
argLiment struck the Moravian missionary as especially 
ridiculous, and in another way it might have done so to 
an artillery officer, for a couple of mountain-guns could 
easily destroy Shipki from the Kiing-ma Pass ; but it 
was not ridiculous in the mouths of these wild Tartar 
mountaineers, who firmly believe in their extraordinary 
religion, and whose only experience of warfare has been 
matchlock-skirmishing on their lofty frontiers with the 
men of Kunawar, for whom they have the greatest con- 
tempt. 



I40 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

It was curious to find these rude men reasoning thus 
ingeniously, and it struck me forcibly that though the 
voice was the voice of the rough Tartar Esau, yet the 
words were the words of the wily Chinese Jacob. There 
was something peculiarly Chinese-like also, and far from 
Tartar, in the way in which they shirked responsibility. 
Personally they were not at all afraid of being uncivil ; 
but when it came to the question as to who was who, 
and on whose responsibility they acted, then they be- 
came as evasive as possible. Thus, in the matter of 
supplies, though they at first refused point-blank to let 
us have any, yet, after a little, they adopted different 
and still more unpleasant tactics. They said they would 
let us have a sheep — a small one — for five rupees, which 
was about double its value. On our agreeing to give 
five, no sheep appeared ; and on our inquiring after it, a 
message was sent back that we might have it for six 
rupees. On six being agreed to, the price was raised 
to seven, and so on, until it became too apparent that 
they were only amusing themselves with us. And when- 
ever we reasoned on this subject with an ugly monster 
who had been put forward — and had put himself for- 
ward with a great profession of desire for. our comfort — • 
as the official corresponding to the milkea or lambadar, 
who looks after the wants of travellers — he promptly 
disclaimed all pretensions to having anything to do with 
such a function, and pointed to another man as the verit- 
able mukea, to whom we ought to apply. This other 
man said it was true he was a relative of that func- 
tionary, and he would be happy to do anything for us if 
the headmen of the village would authorise it, but the 
veritable vmkea was up with the sheep on the Kung-ma, 
and if we found him there on our way back, he would, 
no doubt, supply all our wants. In this way we were 
bandied about from pillar to post without getting satis- 



CHINESE TARTARS. 141 

faction, or finding responsibility acknowledged anywhere. 
On the matter being pressed, we were told that the 
headmen of Shipki were deliberating upon our case ; 
but it was impossible to get any one to acknowledge that 
he was a headman, or to find out who and where they 
were. I think they did supply us with some firewood, 
and they sold a lamb to Phooleyram and Nurdass, 
that these Kunaits might have it killed as their religion 
requires, not by having the throat cut, but the head cut 
or hacked off from above at the neck-joint. That was 
all they would do, however; and they impounded one of 
our yaks, on a doubtful charge of trespassing, and only 
released it on payment of a small sum. 

I was particularly anxious to find some official to deal 
with ; but though there were Tartar soldiers about, one 
of whom we came upon by surprise, it was impossible 
to get any one to acknowledge that he was an official, or 
to unearth one anywhere. In an unguarded moment 
some of the villagers told us that they were ordered by 
the Tzong-pon, or "commander of the fort" {Tzong 
meaning a fort, and pon 2, general or chief*), not to let 
us pass ; but no fort was visible, or general either; and 
when we inquired further about this officer, they affected 
not to know what we were talking about. But the Tzong- 
pon at Shipki means the Tzong-pon of D'zabrung, the 
governor of the district. (This place is the Chaprang of 
Montgomerie's map : it has a fort, and is said to be about 
eight marches distant from Shipki.) But no one would 
undertake to forward a letter to the Tzong-pon, or pro- 
duce any authority from him for refusing to allow us to 
proceed farther. 



* So also viak-pon, a general of ti-oops ; dd-pon, the commander of a 
boat ; isik-pon, an architect ; chir-pon, a superintendent of stables ; and 
zol-pon, a head cook. 



142 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

For all this I was in a manner prepared, because 
several attempts had previously been made in vain to 
enter Chinese Tibet by this door. My object in going 
to Shipki was simply to see for myself how the frontier 
matter stood, and to have a look at Chinese Tartary and 
Tartars. I never supposed for a moment that, on a first 
experience of Himaliyan travel, and without a basis of 
operations near the frontier, I could penetrate for any 
distance into Chinese Tibet ; and at the utmost contem- 
plated only the possibility of making a few days' jour- 
ney across the frontier, though I should have been quite 
ready to go on all the three months' journey from 
Shipki to Lassa had the way been at all open. It struck 
me there was a chance of getting over the frontier diffi- 
culty by going back to Kunawar, purchasing yaks there, 
and then recrossing the Kung-ma and passing Shipki 
by night ; but the time I could have afforded for this 
experiment had been consumed during the month of 
my illness at Pu, and I had the alternative before me of 
either not making such an attempt, or of relinquishing 
all hope of reaching Kashmir before it was closed for 
the season, or even of seeing much of the Himaliya. I had 
no hesitation in preferring to go on to Kashmir. It was 
not as if I were going back in doing so. In point of 
fact, to go to the Valley of Flowers by the route I 
selected and followed out, was to plunge into a still 
more interesting stretch of mountain countr}-, and into 
remote Tibetan provinces, such as Zanskar, situated at 
what may fairly be called the very " back of beyont," 
and practically as secluded from the world and as 
unknown to the public as the dominion of the Grand 
Lama itself. It was also very doubtful how far it would 
be possible to advance into Chinese Tibet by having 
yaks of one's own and passing Shipki by night, because 
a few miles beyond that village the road crosses the 



CHINESE TARTARS. 143 

Sutlej, and the only way of passing that river there is 
over a bridge which is guarded by Tartar troops. The 
Kunawar men told us of this, and they know the 
country well ; for the objection to the entrance of 
Europeans does not apply to themselves, and in summer 
they are in the habit of trading some way into the 
interior of Chinese Tibet with blankets, sugar, tobacco, 
and wool, bringing back rock-salt, shawl-wool, and borax. 
They also mentioned that a few days' journey beyond 
the frontier, they were exposed to much danger from 
mounted robbers, there being hardly any villages or 
houses until they get to D'zabrung or to Gartop, except 
a small village within sight of Shipki ; and one of them 
showed us deep scars upon his head, which had been 
severely cut by these robbers. In travelling among the 
Himaliya, one must necessarily keep to the roads, such 
as they are, and the only way of crossing the deep-cut 
furious rivers is by the bridges which have been thrown 
across them ; so that a bridge with a guard of soldiers 
would in all probability be an impassable obstacle, 
except to an armed force. But, once past the Sutlej 
and on the rolling hills of Tartary, it would be possible 
to wander about freely in many directions. The Shipki 
people told us that if we persisted in going on without 
their assistance, they would use force to prevent us, 
defending this by their favourite argum.ent that they 
might as well be killed fighting us as be killed letting us 
pass. Could we have procured even very limited means 
of conveyance, I for my part should have tested this ; 
but I was scarcely able at the time to walk at all ; and I 
have not the least doubt, from their demeanour, that 
they would have carried out their threat, and would even 
have been delighted to do so; for it more than once 
looked as if they only wanted the slightest pretext in 
order to fall upon us, and were chiefly prevented from 



144 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

doing so by their respect for Mr Pagell as a teacher of reli- 
gion and a dispenser of medicines. We might safely 
conclude, then, that the soldiers at the bridge would be 
equally intractable ; and it is difficult to say what one 
might meet with in the country beyond — how soon one 
might be robbed of everything, and find one's head 
adorning the pole of a nomad's tent. The Abbe Des- 
godins, who lived for some time in the Lassa territory 
towards the Chinese frontier, asserts that the Tartar of 
that country takes great pleasure, when he has an enemy, 
in persuading that enemy that he is quite reconciled to 
him, in asking him to a generous dinner, and in suddenly 
firing a bullet into his enemy's stomach, when that de- 
luded individual is supposed to have reached the moment 
of repletion. If such be the way in which the inhabi- 
tants of the country of the Sacred Religion treat their 
friends, it can easily be imagined that, when they fell in 
with a stranger, they would not even be at the expense 
of providing a good dinner for him, unless that were 
absolutely necessary to -throw him off his guard. No 
doubt it is only a portion of the population which are in 
the habit of indulging in such hospitality ; but the diffi- 
culty would be to distinguish between that portion and 
the more respectable inhabitants. Two or three years 
ago the tribute which is annually sent up from Nepal 
to Lassa was seized and appropriated by Tartars on the 
way ; and on their being told that it was for the Lassa 
Government, they replied that they did not care for any 
government. Possibly such rovers might be afraid to 
meddle with Europeans, but that could not be relied on; 
and it would be almost impossible for one or two travel- 
lers to secure themselves against a night attack. 

Hence, if the explorer gets beyond Shipki, and 
beyond the bridge over the Sutlej, it does not neces- 
sarily follow that he will reach D'zabrung or anywhere 



CHINESE TARTARS. 145 

else ; but I expect the bridge will be his main difficulty ; 
and I have heard of an amusing story connected with 
a bridge — of an officer who attempted to enter Chinese 
Tibet at some other point. He managed to give the 
guard on the frontier the slip at night, and was happily- 
pursuing his way next morning, congratulating himself 
on having entered into the forbidden land, when he was 
overtaken by a portion of the guard, who politely inti- 
mated that, since they saw he was determined to go, 
they would make no more objection to his doing so, 
only they would accompany him, in order to protect 
him from robbers. This arrangement worked very well 
for a few hours, until they came to a deep-sunk river 
and a rope bridge — one of those bridges in which you 
are placed in a basket, which is slung from a rope, and 
so pulled along that rope by another and a double rope, 
which allows of the basket being worked from either 
side. Over this river some of the Tartars passed first, 
in order to show that the conveyance was warranted not 
to break down; and then our traveller himself got into 
the basket and was pulled along. So far everything 
had gone on well ; but, when he had got half- wav across 
the river, his protectors ceased to pull, sat down, lighted 
their pipes, and looked at him as they might at an in- 
teresting object which had been provided for their con- 
templation. "Pull!" he cried out, "pull!" on which 
they nodded their heads approvingly, but sat still and 

smoked their pipes. '• D n it, pull, will you .'' piL'll !'' 

he cried out again, becoming weary of the basket ; and 
then he tried all the equivalents for " pull " in all the 
Eastern languages he knew ; but the more he cried out, 
the more the Tartars smoked their silver pipes and 
nodded their heads, like Chinese porcelain mandarins. 
They interfered, however, to prevent his pulling himself 
one way or another ; and, after keeping him suspended 

K 



146 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

in the basket till night, and he was almost frozen to 
death, they made an agreement, through a Tibetan- 
speaking attendant, that they would pull him back if he 
would promise to recross the frontier. 

If half the stories be true which Mr Pagell has heard 
from Lamas of the punishments inflicted in Chinese 
Tibet, it is no wonder that the people of that country 
are extremely afraid of disobeying the orders of the 
Government whenever they are so situated as to be 
within the reach of Government officers. Crucifying, 
ripping open the body, pressing and cutting out the 
eyes, are by no means the worst of these punishments. 
One mode of putting to death, which is sometimes in- 
flicted, struck me as about the most frightful instance of 
diabolical cruelty I had ever heard of, and worse than 
anything portrayed in the old chamber of horrors at 
Canton, The criminal is buried in the ground up to the 
neck, and the ground is trampled on round him suffi- 
ciently to prevent him moving hand or foot, though not 
so as to prevent his breathing with tolerable freedom. 
His mouth is then forced open, and an iron or wooden 
spike sharpened at both ends, is carefully placed in it so 
that he cannot close his mouth again. Nor is the tor- 
ture confined to leaving him to perish in that miserable 
condition. Ants, beetles, and other insects are collected 
and driven to take refuge in his mouth, nostrils, ears, 
and eyes. Can the imagination conceive of anything 
more dreadful.'' Even the writhing caused by pain, 
which affords some relief, is here impossible except just 
at the neck ; and a guard being placed over the victim, 
he is left to be thus tortured by insects until he expires. 
The frame of mind which can devise and execute such 
atrocities is almost inconceivable to the European ; and 
we must hope that a punishment of this kind is held in 
.icrrorem over the Tibetans, rather than actually inflicted. 



CHINESE TARTARS. 147 

But I am afraid it is put in force ; and we know too 
much of Chinese and Tartar cruelties to think there is 
any improbability in its being so. It is certain that the 
Turanian race is remarkably obtuse-nerved and insen- 
sible to pain, which goes some way to account for the 
cruelty of its punishments ; but that cannot justify them. 
In other ways, also, Tartar discipline must be very 
rigorous. Gerard was told that where there is a re^-ular 
horse-post — as between Lassa and Gartop — "the bundle 
is sealed fast to the rider, who is again sealed to his" 
horse ; and no inconvenience, however great, admits of 
his dismounting until he reaches the relief-stage, where 
the seal is examined!" I heard something about men 
being sealed up this way for a ride of twenty-four 
hours ; and if that be true, the horses must have as 
much endurance as the men. 

The question arises why it is that the Lassa authori- 
ties are so extremely anxious to keep all Europeans out 
of th^ir country. The Tibetans lay the blame of this 
on the Chinese Mandarins, and the Mandarins on 
Lamas and the people of Tibet ; but they appear all to 
combine in ensuring the result. This is the more re- 
markable, because the Lama country is not one with 
which Europeans are in contact, or one which they are 
pressing on in any way. It is pretty well defendu 
naturally, owing to the almost impassable deserts and 
great mountains by which it is surrounded ■; and it has 
by no means such an amount of fertile land as to make 
it a desirable object of conquest as a revenue-bearing 
province. The reason assigned, by letter, in 1870 to the 
Abbe Desgodins, by the two legates at Lassa — the one 
representing the Emperor of China, and the other the 
Grand Lama — for refusing to allow him to enter Tibet, 
was as follows : — " Les contrees thibetaines sont con- 
sacrees aux supplications et aux prieres ; la religion 



148 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

jaune est fondee sur la justice et la droite raison ; elle 
est adoptee depuis un grand nombre de siecles ; on ne 
doit done pas precher dans ces contrees une relii:;ion 
etrang^re ; nos peuples ne doivent avoir aucun rapport 
aux hommes des autres royaumes." This, however, 
is evasive ; and, though they are different in the east of 
Tibet, the Lamas at Shipki made not the least objec- 
tion to Mr Pagell preaching as much as he liked ; they 
argued with him in quite an amicable manner, and 
afforded us protection. 

Is it possible that the gold — or, to speak more gene- 
rally, the mineral — deposits in Tibet may have some- 
thing to do with the extreme anxiety of the Chinese to 
keep us out of that country ? They must know that, 
without some attraction of the kind, only a few adven- 
turous missionaries and travellers would think of going 
into so sterile a countrj'-, which can yield but little trade, 
and which is in many parts infested by bands of hardy 
and marauding horsemen. But the Mandarins have 
quite enough information to be well aware that if it 
were known in Europe and America that large gold- 
fields existed in Tibet, and that the miri sacra fames 
might there, for a time at least, be fully appeased, no 
supplications, or prayers either, would suffice to pre- 
vent a rush into it of occidental rowdies ; and that thus 
an energetic and boisterous white community might 
soon be established to the west of the Flowery Land, 
and would give infinite trouble, both by enforcing the 
right of passage through China, and by threatening it 
directly. 

That there is gold in Chinese Tibet does not admit of 
a doubt ; and, in all probability, it could be procured 
there in large quantities were the knowledge and appli- 
ances of California and Australia set to"work in search 
of it. In the Sutlej valley, it is at the Chinese border 



CHINESE TARTARS. 149 

that the clay-slates, mica-schists, and gneiss, give way 
to quartz and exceedingly quartzose granite — the rocks 
which nriost abound in gold. The rolling hills across 
the frontier are similar in structure to those which lead 
to the Californian Sierra Nevada, and are probably 
composed of granite gravel. In our Himaliya, and in 
that of the native states tributary to us, there is not 
much granite or quartz, and gneiss is the predominant 
rock of the higher peaks and ranges. But granite (and, 
to a less degree, trap) has been the elevating power. 
There has been a considerable outburst of granite at 
Gangotri and Kiddernath, and the consequence is that 
gold is found, though in small quantities, in the streams 
beneath. Among this great range of mountains there 
are various rivers, 

" Whose foam is amber and their gravel gold." 

The district of Gunjarat in the Hindu Kush, north-east 
of the Chittral Valley, is named on account of its gold. 
Kafiristan, in the same direction, produces gold, which 
is made into ornaments and utensils. Badakshan is 
celebrated for its veins of the precious metal, as well as 
for its rubies and lapis lazuli. Also at Fauladut, near 
Bam/an, and in the hills of Istalif north of Kaubul, 
gold is found. It is washed out of the upper bed of the 
Indus in certain parts where that bed is accessible, and 
also from the sands of the Indus immediately after it 
emerges at Torbela on to the Panjab plain. We have 
it, too, in the bed of the Cha^/ok river. Gold is also 
washed out of the bed of the Sutlej, a little below Kot- 
ghar, where the people can get down to that bed. Now, 
where does that latter gold come from } We may go a 
long way up the Sutlej before finding rocks likely to 
■produce any of that metal, unless in the minutest 
quantities ; but advance up that river to the Chinese 



I50 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

frontier, and we come upon a stretch of country which is 
extremely Hkely to be the matrix of vast gold deposits. 
Great quantities of gold may be washed out of that 
region by the Sutlej, and yet not much of it find its 
way below Kotghar, because so heavy a metal soon 
sinks into the bed of the stream. Nor does this sup- 
position depend entirely upon my unsupported geo- 
logical conjecture ; because it is well known to the 
Kunawar people that gold is found in Tibet, not very 
far from Shipki. The largest of these gold-fields are at 
Shok Jalung, the Thok Jalung of Major Montgomerie, 
which is in lat. 32° 24', and long. 81° 37', at a height de- 
scribed as about 16,000 feet. But there are many more 
of them, especially about Damu, near the Sutlej, not 
far from its source, and at Gartop, close to the Indus. 
The fact that not only gold-washings but even gold- 
mines are reported to exist in that part of the country 
between the two rivers, affords pretty conclusive proof, 
when taken in connection with the geological aspect of 
the hills, so far as can be seen from the Kung-ma Pass, 
that the western part at least of Chinese Tibet has im- 
portant gold-fields. Of course the people there have 
no means of working their mines effectually, and the 
Lama religion does not encourage the search for pre- 
cious metals ; but it would be very different if the appli- 
ances of civilisation were brought to bear on the matter. 
Besides gold, Chinese Tibet possesses silver, mercury, 
iron, cinnabar, nitre, lapis lazuli, borax, and rock-salt. 
The quantity of turquoises which it can turn out ap- 
pears to be almost unlimited, and the women of all the 
Himaliya richly ornament their hair and dress with 
these gems — those about the size of a hazel-nut being 
the most common. It is doubtful, however, whether 
the metals enumerated above are to be found in the 
country to any great extent, though there is no reason 



CHINESE TARTARS. 151 

to suppose that some of them may not be so. A most 
serious want is that of fuel. It is quite unlikely that 
there is any coal, and wood is extremely scarce. On 
the east side there are great forests here and there ; but, 
on the elevated plains of the west, the Tartars have to 
depend for their fires almost entirely on furze and the 
droppings of their flocks. This must create a serious 
obstacle in the way of working mines, and of a mining 
population existing at such a height; but if only gold 
exists up there in great abundance it is an obstacle 
which might be profitably overcome by the resources of 
modern science. 

There is no less reason to believe that Eastern Tibet 
abounds in the precious metals. The Abbe Desgodins 
writes that " le sable d'or se trouves dans toutes les 
rivieres et meme dans les petits ruisseaux du Thibet 
oriental;" and he mentions that in the town of Bathan, 
or Batan, with which he was personally acquainted, 
about twenty persons were regularly occupied in secretly 
washing for gold, contrary to the severe laws of the 
country. At other places many hundreds engaged in 
the same occupation. He also mentions five gold-mines 
and three silver-mines as worked in the Tchong-tien 
province in the -upper Yang-tse valley ; and in the valley 
of the Mey-kong river there are seven mines of gold, 
eight of silver, and several more of other metals. He 
also mentions a large number of other districts, in each 
of which there is quite a number of gold and silver- 
mines, besides mines of mercury, iron, and copper. It 
is no wonder, then, that a Chinese proverb speaks of 
Tibet as being at once the most elevated and the richest 
country in the world, and that the Mandarins are so 
anxious to keep Europeans out of it. If the richest 
mineral treasures in the world lie there, as we have so 
much reason to suppose, there is abundant reason why 



152 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

strangers should be kept out of it, and why it should be 
kept sacred for the Yellow Religion, for supplications 
and pra3/ers. 

The area of Tibet is partly a matter of conjecture, 
and the best geographers set it down as between six and 
seven hundred thousand square miles, with a very con- 
jectural population of ten millions. With Mongolia on 
the north ; Turkestan, Kunawar, and the mountainous 
dependencies of Kashmir on the west; Nepal, Sikkim, 
and Bhotan, with their Himaliya, on the south ; and the 
Chinese province of Yunnan on the east, — it is about as 
well lifted out of and defended from the world as any 
country could be; and although Lassa is about the same 
latitude as Cairo and New Orleans, yet the great eleva- 
tion of the whole country (which may be roughly called 
a tableland of from 15,000 to 16,000 feet high) gives it 
almost an arctic climate. The great cluster of moun- 
tains called the Thibetan Kailas (the height of wdiich 
remains unascertained, and some of the peaks of which 
may be even higher than Gaurisankar) well deserves to 
be called the centre of the world. It is, at least, the 
greatest centre of elevation, and the point from whence 
flow the Sutlej, the Indus, and the Brahmaputra; while 
to Tibet, meaning by that word the whole country in 
which Tibetan is spoken, we may ascribe most of the 
rivers of the Panjab, and also the Jumna, the Ganges, 
the Irrawaddi, the Yang-tse, and even, the Hoang-Ho, 
or great Yellow River. The pass at Shipki, over which 
I crossed, is one of the lowest of the passes into Chinese 
Tibet, There is another and more difficult pass close 
to it, about 12,500 feet high ; but the others are of great 
height, and the Mana Pass, between Tibet and Gurwhal, 
is 18,570 feet. Though Lassa is the capital of the whole 
country, Teshu Lambu, said to have a population of 
about 50,000, is the capital of the western division of 



CHINESE TARTARS, 153 

Chinese Tibet, and is the residence of the Bogda Lama, 
the hifrhest spiritual authority after the Grand Lama. 

The young persons of Shipki had none of the shame- 
facedness of the women of Lidia. They would come 
and sit down before our tents and laugh at us, or talk 
with us. It was quite evident that we were a source of 
great amusement to them. They were certainly^ rather 
robust than beautiful ; but one girl, who had come from 
the other side of Lassa, would have been very good- 
looking had she been well washed. This Tartar beauty 
had a well-formed head, regular features, and a reddish- 
brown complexion. She was expensively adorned, and 
was probably the relative of some official who thought 
it best to keep in the background. Li fact, she was 
very handsome indeed, lively and good-humoured ; but 
there was the slight drawback that her face had never 
been washed since the day of her birth. Another }-ou ng 
girl belonging to Shipki tempted some of our Namgea 
men into a mild flirtation ; but whenever they offered to 
touch her it was a matter of tooth and nails at once. 
Mr Pagell's conversation with the people on the subject 
of religion was well enough received, though his state- 
ments were not allowed to go uncontroverted, and his 
medical advice was much preferred. Li talking with us, 
the men were rather rude in their manner, and, after 
staying for a little, they would suddenly go away, laugh- 
ing, and slapping their persons in a way that was far 
from respectful. 

Both men and women wore long tunics and loose 
trousers, a reddish colour being predominant, and also 
large cloth Tartar boots : but during the heat of the day 
many of both sexes dispensed with the boots, and some 
of the men appeared with the upper part of their bodies 
entirely naked. All the men had pigtails, and they 
wore caps 'like the ordinary Chinese skull-caps, though, 



154 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

from dirt and perspiration, the original colour and orna- 
mentation were not distinguishable. The women had 
some pigtailSj some plaits, and were richly ornamented 
with turquoises, opals, pieces of amber, shells (often 
made into immense bracelets), corals, and gold and 
silver amulets ; while the men had metal pipes, knives, 
and ornamented daggers stuck in their girdles. The 
oblique eye and prominent cheekbones Avere noticeable, 
though not in very marked development ; and though 
the noses were thick and muscular, they were sometimes 
straight or aquiline. The bodies were well developed, 
large, and strong ; but the men struck me as dispropor- 
tionally taller than the women. The weather being- 
warm, hardly any one appeared in sheepskins, and most 
of their garments were of thick woollen stuff, though the 
girl from beyond Lassa wore a tunic of the ordinary 
thick, glazed, black, Chinese-made flaxen cloth. We 
did not obtain permission to enter any of their houses, 
which were strongh'- built and roofed of stone, but saw 
sufficient to indicate that these were dark uncleanly 
habitations, almost devoid of furniture. 

Shipki is a large village in tlie sub-district of Rong- 
chung, with a number of terraced fields, apricot-trees, 
apple-trees, and gooseberry-bushes. It is watered by 
streams artificially led to it from the glaciers and snow- 
beds to the south-west of the Kung-ma Pass, where 
there are great walls of snow and snowy peaks about 
20,000 feet high. Twenty-four of its zemindars, or pro- 
prietors of land, pay a tax amounting to £^ yearly to 
the Government, and the remainder pa\' smaller sum.s. 
The population numbers about 2000, and they have not 
exactly the typical Tartar countenance, though with 
clearly-marked Tartar characteristics, and there were 
two or three strangers among them whose features were 
purely Turanian. The people of Shipki have a striking 



CHINESE TARTARS. 155 

resemblance to the country Chinese of the province of 
Shantung, and they were large, able-bodied, and rather 
brutal in their manners, — not a trace of Chinese for- 
mality or politeness being apparent. The village is 
separated into several divisions ; the houses are not close 
together, and the steep paths between them are execra- 
ble, being little more than stairs of rock with huge steps. 
The gooseberry-bushes, however, gave a pleasant ap- 
pearance to the place, and the unripe berries promised 
to reach a considerable size. Of course the whole dis- 
trict is almost perfectly rainless, and the air is so dry as 
to crack the skin of Europeans. It must get very little 
sun in winter, and be excessively cold at that season; 
but in summer the climate is mild, and hottish during 
the day. The thermometer outside my tent was 56° at 
sunrise; but it was 84° Fahr. at 2 P.M. inside the tent, 
with a breeze blowing through. The bed of the Sutlej 
near Shipki is about 9500 feet high, which is a remark- 
able elevation for so large a river. 

Finding it hopeless to pass Shipki, at all events with- 
out going back to Kundwar, and purchasing yaks of my 
own, I determined to proceed to Kashmir, high up 
along the whole line of the Western Hinialiya ; and, 
indeed, I did not manage to reach that country a day 
too soon, for I narrowly escaped being snowed up for 
the winter in the almost unknown province of Zanskar. 
Mr Pagell also acknowledged the hopelessness of at- 
tempting to proceed farther into the dominions of the 
Grand Lama, so we left Shipki on the afternoon of the 
lOth August ; and though the thermometer had been at 
82° in our tents shortly before starting, we camped that 
night with it at 57° before sunset in a pure bracing 
atmosphere at the Shipki Rizhing, or Shipki Fields, 
about 2500 feet higher up on the Kung-ma Pass, but on 
the eastern side of it, and still 'within the Chinese border. 



IS© THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

Here we had a remarkable example of the courage and 
ferocity of the Tartars. On leaving the outskirts of 
Shipki, our coolies had plucked and taken away with 
them some unripe apples ; and at the Shipki Rizhing, 
where there are no houses, only an empty unroofed hut 
or two for herdsmen, a solitary Tartar made his appear- 
ance, and observing the apples, declared that they were 
his, and, abusing the coolies for taking them, straight- 
way fell upon the man in possession of them, tore that 
individual's hair, and knocked him about in the most 
savage manner. Though there were over twenty of the 
Kunawar men looking on, and several of them were im- 
plicated in the theft, if .such it might be called, yet none 
of them ventured to interfere ; and their companion 
might have received serious injury, had not Chota Khan 
who was always ready for a fray of the kind, gone in and 
separated the two. Now this was between two and 
three thousand feet above the village, and I doubt if 
there were any other Tartars about the spot, except one 
other man who had come to see us off the premises. 
Ferocity is much admired in Chinese Tibet; and in 
order to create it, the people are fond of eating what 
they ironically call " still meat," or meat with maggots 
in it. We heard also that, to the same end, they give a 
very curious pap to their infants. Meat, cut into thin 
slices, is dried in the sun and ground into powder; it is 
then mixed with fresh blood and put into a cotton cloth 
and so given to the enfant ten'ible to suck. Mixtures 
such as this, combined with half-raw flesh, sun-dried 
flesh, and, where there is cultivation, with girdle-cakes of 
wheat, buckwheat, and barley, must make a pretty 
strong diet even for the seniors, and one well fitted to pro- 
duce endurance and courage. It is to be hoped the milk 
(of mares and other animals) which the nomad Tartars 
so largely imbibe, may have some effect in mollifying 



CHINESE TARTARS. 157 

the ferocity of their spirits. It is very extraordinary 
that the Chinese, who are a Tartar people, and must 
have descended at one time from the " Land of Grass," 
should so entirely eschew the use of milk in every 
shape. For long there was a difficulty in getting even a 
sufficiency of that liquid for the use of the foreigners at 
the open ports in China ; and I have heard of a sliip 
captain at Whampoa, on blowing up his comprador for 
not having brought him any milk, receiving the indig- 
nant answer — '"^lliat pig hab killo, that dog hab weillo 
(run away), that Avoman b.ab catchee cheillo — how then 
can catchee milk?" A Lama at Kaelang, on being 
spoken to on this subject, admitted that he had ob- 
served that "even at Lassa the pure Chinese did not take 
any milk ; and he said the reason they gave for not 
doing so was, that milk makes people stupid. I fancy 
there is some truth in that assertion ; -but possibly the 
Chinese may have got the idea from the fact that the 
Tartars, who are necessarily milk-drinkers and eaters of 
dried milk and buttermilk, are a very stupid people. 
Sir Alexander Burnes mentions a similar opinion as 
existing in Sind in regard to the effects of fish. There, 
a fish diet is believed to destroy the mind ; and in pal- 
liation of ignorance or stupidity in any one, it is often 
pieaded that "he is but a fish-eater." Yet this diet, 
more than any other, if our modern savants can be 
trusted, supplies the brain with phosphorus and thought, 
so it is calculated to make people the reverse of stupid. 
The next day we started before daylight, and camped 
again at Namgea Fields. The view over Tartary, from 
the summit of the pass, was somewhat obscured by the 
rising sun, which cast on it a confusing roseate light; 
but the great outlines of the rolling hills and windy 
steppes were visible. I should be glad to try Chinese 
Tibet again, and in a more serious way ; but meanwhile 



158 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

I had all the Western Himahya before me, from Lfo 
Porgyul to the 26,000 peak of Nunga Parbat, besides 
the Afghan border, and I had satisfied my immediate 
purpose by seeing some of the primitive Turanians, and 
looking on their wild, high, mountain home. 



CHAPTER V. 

HANGRANG, SPITI, AND TIBETAN POLYANDRY. 

On turning north-westward from Chinese Tibet, I set 
myself to the task of traversing the whole line of the 
Western Himaliya, from Li'o Porgyul to Kashmir and 
the Hindu Kiish, in the interior of its ranges, at a height 
usually about 12,000 feet, and through the provinces of 
Hangrang, Spiti, Lahaul, Zanskar, Suru, and Dras. 
About half of this line of journey is not to be found in 
Montgomerie's Routes, and it involves more than one 
passage of several days over high and difficult ground, 
where there are no villages, no houses, and scarcely even 
any wood. Nevertheless, it commends itself as a sum- 
mer and autumn journey to the traveller, from its great 
elevation, which keeps him above the tremendous heat 
of the gorges — from its singularly pure and bracing air 
— from the protection which more than one snowy range 
affords against the Indian monsoon — from the awful 
sublimity of the scenery — and from the exceedingly 
primitive and essentially Turanian and Lamaistic cha- 
racter of the people among whom he has to sojourn. 

It is possible to hit upon this line of journey without 
essaying the arduous task of visiting Pu and Shipki, be- 
cause there is a path from Sungnam to Nako, in Hang- 
rang, by way of Li'o and Hango, which, though it goes 
over the Hangrang Pass at an altitude of 14,530 feet, 
is comparatively easy. But from Namgea Rizhing or 
Fields, I had to reach Nako by crossing the Sutlej and 
passing over a shoulder of the great mountain Lfo 



i6o THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

Porgyul ; so, on the I2th August, we made the steep 
ascent to the village of Namgea, and from there to a 
very unpleasanty/«i/<2 which crosses the foaming torrent 
of the Sutlej. In this part of the Himali37a, and, indeed, 
on to Kaslimir, these bridges are constructed of twigs, 
chiefly from birch-trees'" or bushes, twisted together. 
Two thick ropes of these twigs, about the size of a man's 
thigh, or a little larger, are stretched across the river, at 
a distance of about six to four feet from each other, and 
a similar rope runs between them, three or four feet 
lower, being connected with the upper ropes by more 
slender ropes, also usually of birch twigs twisted to- 
gether, but sometimes of grass, and occurring at an 
interval of about five feet from each other. The un- 
pleasantness of a jhida is that the passenger has no 
proper hold of the upper ropes, which are too thick and 
rough to be grasped by the hand ; and that, at the 
extremities, they are so far apart that it is difficult to 
have any hold of both ^t the same time ; while the 
danger is increased by the bend or hang of the jhula, 
which is much lower in the middle than at its ends. He 
has also to stoop painfully in order to move along it ; 
and it is seldom safe for him to rest his feet on the 
lower rope, except where it is supported from the upper 
ropes by the transverse ones. To fall into the raging 
torrent underneath would be almost certain destruction. 
The high Avind which usually prevails in the Himaliya 
during the day makes the whole structure swing about 
frightfully. In the middle of tlie bridge there is a cross- 
bar of wood (to keep the two upper ropes separate), which 
has to be stepped over; and it is not customary to repair 
a jhula until some one falls through it, and so gives 
practical demonstration that it is in rather a rotten state. 
One of these bridges — at Kokser on the Chandra river, 
but now superseded by a wooden bridge — may have 



HANGRANG, SPITI, AND POLYANDRY. i6i 

accelerated the death of Lord Elgin on his way up to 
Dharamsala. When crossing over it, his coat was caught 
on the birch twigs ; and his progress being thus arrested, 
he was unable to go over it with that continuous, but 
not too rapid motion, which is the safest way of dealing 
with such a passage. To delay on a bridge of this kind, 
swinging in the wind, is trying to the strongest nerves ; 
and I know, on excellent authority, that the position in 
which he was thus placed had probably some effect in 
aggravating the heart disease from which this Governor- 
General died not many daj's afterwards. 

This bridcre below Namgea, which is over lOO feet in 
length, is a particularly bad one, because there is so 
little traffic over it that it is almost never repaired ; and 
Mr Pa^ell told me that the Namgea people were at 
some loss to know how I was to be got across in m}^ 
weak and disabled state. A discussion arose amongst 
them as to whether the jhida would bear the weight of 
one or two men to assist me over it, on hearing of which 
I could not help laughing quietly, because, however unfit 
for prolonged muscular exertion, any short dangerous 
piece of work was just what I liked. Accordingly, to 
the wonder and admiration of the mountaineers, who 
could not distinguish between incapacity for walking up 
6oco feet and weakness of nerve, I took i\\Qj7nila when- 
ever I came to it, without stopping to think, of it, or 
looking either to the right or the left until I found my- 
self safe on the rocks on the other side. Silas followed 
my example, and, with his lithe Maratha frame, got 
over it in splendid style ; but the heavy Chota Khan 
nearly stuck in the middle, at the cross-bar, and reached 
ter7'a firnia in a state of great agitation. Among the 
people who carried our things, there was the comely 
wife of a zemindar, who came with us for a curious 
reason. Two of her servants had been, detailed off to. 

L 



1 62 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

take part in the carnage of our effects, and it occurred to 
this buxom dame that it would not do to let her servants 
go and receive money on their own account ; so she 
came also, and carried a mere nominal burden, having 
been over Avith us at Shipki. A sentimental and per- 
fectly virtuous friendship had sprung up between this 
lady and my Afghan cook ; and Chota Khan's admira- 
tion of her reached the culminating point when he saw 
his fat friend cross and recross the jhula without the 
least hesitation or trepidation. All our baggage got 
across safely, which cannot be calculated upon at this 
particular bridge, and nobody fell through, though such 
a result did not appear at all unlikely from the rotten 
state of the birch ropes. I have gone over worse j'/iiUas 
than this ; but it was my first, and impressed me with a 
feeling that the fewer we met with on our way the better. 
Any bridge, however, and even the hair-like bridge of 
Chinavad itself, with hell flaming beneath, would have 
been welcome to me at this time, so long as it took me 
across the Sutlej, and away from its furnace-like valley. 
I experienced an intense feeling of relief on finding 
that I had no more Sutlej, but only the long line of 
the Western Himaliya before me. It may appear very 
absurd to hate a river, and regard it as a personal 
enemy and special agent of the powers of evil ; but that 
was the frame of mind into which I had got as regards 
this stream. "Go to," I said, "you uneasy, yellowish- 
white, foaming, thundering river. Go and choke your- 
self in the sands of the Panjab. You may be called 
Laiigrhliaik/iabad, and be fed by the mouths of elephants 
or demons; you may be richly laden with gold-dust,^ 
and may worm your way into the bowels of the earth, 
until, in sunless caverns, you pollute the waters of Alph, 
the sacred river : but }'Ou shall have none of my dust to 
grind. against the walls of your rock-prison." 



HANGRANG, SPIT I, AXD POLYANDRY. 163 

In order to reach^Nako, where Mr Pagell was to part 
from rne, we had to cross Lio Porgyul at a height of 
about 14,000 feet, the lower path having become im- 
passable ; but that could not be done in a day, so we 
camped at a very charming spot called Gvumur, on the 
Sutlej side of the great mountain, at the height of about 
11,500 feet. This was a place corresponding to Namgea ' 
and Shipki Rizhing, having a few terraced fields, and 
also a few huts ; but it was more level than these other 
outlying stations, and had willow-trees with rills of pure 
water running through meads of soft, thick, green grass. 
A spot like this has a peculiar charm after daj's of 
barren rock, and it was all the more pleasant because 
Li'o Porgyul shaded the sun from off us by 3 P.M., and 
left a long, cool, pleasant afternoon. Mr Pagell's con- 
vert, whose father had been hereditary executioner at 
"KTu n a war^ca me out very great on this occasion. All 
along he had shown a disposition to talk without 
measure, and without much regard as to whether any 
one was listening to him or not. It seemed as if having 
been denied the privilege of cutting off human heads^ 
and so stopping human breath, he had a special claim 
to use his own throat and his own breath to an un- 
limited extent. Mr Pagell, with his kind and philo- 
sophical view of human frailty, excused his follower on 
the ground that it was the man's nature so to act ; and 
clearly it was so. If the hereditary executioner had 
somewhat restrained his conversational powers at Shipki, 
as a place where there was some danger of conversa- 
tion being cut short by the removal of the conversing 
head, he fully made up for the deprivation at Gyumur. 
He talked, without ceasing, to his Moravian brother and 
to me, to my servants, to the Namgea bigarries^^ to the 
willow-trees, to the rills, to the huts, and to the stones. 
It did not in the least matter that no one understood 



■ l64 THE ABODE OF SNO W. 

much of what he said, for his dialect of Lower Kuna- 
war was not rendered more intelhgible to the people 
about him by the mispronounced Tibetan words which 
he mixed up with it out of his bronchial tubes. That 
was a matter of no consequence to the hereditary execu- 
tioner, who talked without waiting for replies, and did 
* us excellent service all the while ; but I could not help 
thinking that a few days more of him m.ight have pro- 
duced a strong temptation to exercise his own heredi- 
tary art upon his own person. 

Close to Gyumur there is the monastery of Tasjji- 
gongj; which affords a very secluded position for Lamas 
of a retiring and contemplative turn of mind, as all 
Lamas ought to be. We were indebted to them for 
yaks, or rather zo-pos, but had hardly any communi- 
cation with them, and they did not seem disposed to 
cultivate our acquaintance. They have a beautifully 
secluded position for a monastery, among the precipices 
of a mountain which no one dreams of ascending, and 
away from villages and trade-routes.. This tendency of 
Budhists to seclude themselves from the world has 
interfered with Budhism being a great power in the 
world. Even in China, where the numerous and well- 
built monasteries, with large gardens and plantations 
attached, sufficiently prove that Budhism must, at one 
time, have had a great attraction for the black-haired 
race, this religion has long ceased to be an important 
element in the national life. It is forced to give way 
even before such a religion as Hinduism, and a nega- 
tive positivism such as Confucianism, whenever mankind 
reaches a certain stage of complicated social arrange- 
ments, or, as we call it, civilisation ; but there is a stage 
before that, though after the period of tribal fighting, 
when a religion like Budhism naturally flourishes. Now 
Tibet is still in that position at the present da}', and so 



HANGRANG, SPITI, AND POLYANDRY. 165 

Budhism (in the shape of Lamaism) is still supreme in 
it, though it has almost entirely disappeared from India, 
and has so little power in China. 

Starting about four in the morning, as was our wont, 
we had a very pleasant journey over the mountain to 
Nako. There were some vestiges of a path. The ascent 
was so steep, that great part of the way it looked as if 
the mountains were overhanging us, and some small 
stone avalanches came down uncomfortably near ; but 
that was the character only of the first section. On 
reaching the highest part of the mountain which we 
attained — a height of nearly 14,000 feet — we found our- 
•selves on the turn of its ridge, and wound for some way 
along the top of terrific precipices, which rose up almost 
perpendicularly to the height of about 5000 feet above 
the river Lee. It is more interesting, and a great deal 
more pleasant, being at the top of this gorge than at 
the bottom of it, where there is no path ; and the 
largest pieces of rock we could roll over were dissipated 
into fragments, too small to be seen by us, long before 
they reached the river. 

At Nako we camped close to the village, on the 
grassy bank of a small lake. The other side of this 
lake was lined with large poplar and willow trees, and 
in so desolate a region the place appeared exceedingly 
beautiful. Elsewhere it might not have appeared so 
striking ; but there is nothing like slow difficult travel- 
ling and tent-life or camping out for enabling one to 
appreciate the scenery. I particularly felt this to be 
the case in the upper parts of Kashmir, where not only 
the scene of each night's encampment, but even every 
turn of the beautiful wooded valle3''s, was deeply im- 
pressed upon my memory. Nako is a little over 12,000 
feet high ; and though I had already slept at higher 
altitudes on the Kung-ma Pass, the weather had become 



l66 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

colder, and I here, for the first time, experienced a sen- 
sation which the head of the Yarkund expedition had 
warned me not to be afraid of. It consisted in being 
suddenly awake_ned at night by an overpowering feeling 
of suffocation and faintness, which one unaccustomed to 
it, or not warned about it, might readily mistake for the 
immediate approach of death. It is a very curious 
feeling — just as if the spirit were about to flit from the 
body ; but a io.^ more days of travelling along the line 
of 12,000 feet enabled me to get rid of it altogether. 

At Nako we stayed two nights, and must have been 
in much need of a rest, for we enjoyed our stay there 
immensely in spite of the exceedingly inclement weather. 
It is in an almost rainless district, but it is occasionally 
visited by rain or snow, and we happened to hit on the 
time of one of these storms. Soon after our arrival 
about mid-day the thermometer sank to 50°, and the 
next morning was at 47°, and rain fell, or chill raw mists 
swept over us. Occasionally the clouds would clear 
away, showing the mountain above us white with new- 
fallen snow down to within a few hundred feet of our 
tent ; and this sort of weather continued during the 
period of our stay at this highly elevated village. At 
night it was intensely cold ; the wind carried the rain 
into our frail abodes wherever it could find admission ; 
and though the canvas of our tents did not admit the 
wet exactl\% yet it was in a very damp state, which 
added to the coolness of the interior. Nevertheless we 
felt quite at home, and our servants also enjoyed them- 
selves much. They amused themselves with various 
athletic games ; and, to my astonishment, I found Silas, 
who had spent all his life within the tropics, swimming 
across the lake, which was a most dangerous thing to do, 
owing to the almost icy coldness of the water and the 
number of tangled weeds which it contained. This, e.nd 



HANGRANG, SPITI, AND POLYANDRY. 167 

our general cheerfulness, said a great deal for the bene- 
ficial effects of high mountain air, and of a nourishing 
diet of milk, mutton, game, and wheat or barley flour, 
so superior to the rice, curries, vegetables, and pulse, 
with which the people of India delight to stuff them- 
selves. The piles of duippattics, or girdle-cakes, which 
my servants baked for themselves, were enormous ; so 
were their draughts of milk ; and I suppliecH them with a 
great deal of mutton, which they did not undervalue. 
The people of all the Tibetan-speaking countries also 
eat enormously. They always had something before 
starting, however early the hour might be ; and when- 
ever we halted for a little on the way, they took out 
their s2Lttu, or roasted barley flour, and if there happened 
to be any water accessible, kneaded this flour into large 
balls about the size of a cricket-ball, and so ate it with 
great gusto. On halting for the day, which was most 
usually about three in the afternoon, while the men 
assisted us in pitching the tents and making other 
arrangements, the women immediately fell to work in 
making duippatties and preparing great pots of tea-brotli, 
into which they put salt, butter, flour, sometimes even 
meat, and, in fact, almost anything eatable which turned' 
up. After .they had done with us, the whole of their 
afternoons and evenings appeared to be spent in eating 
and supping, varied occasionally by singing or a wild 
dance. Sometimes they prolonged their feasting late 
into the night ; and it was a mystery to me where all 
the flesh they consumed came from, until I observed 
that the Himaliya are very rich in the carcasses of sheep 
and goats which have been killed by exposure or by 
falling rocks. All this eating enables the Tibetans to 
carry enormous burdens, and to make long marches up 
and down their terrible mountains. Among the rice- 
eating Kashmirians I observed that large-bodied, strong 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



enough looking young men were grievously oppressed, 
and soon knocked up, by burdens which Tibetan women 
could have carried gaily along far more difficult paths, 
and which their husbands would have thought nothing 
of.. But ev'en in Tibet the heaviest burden did not 
always go to the strongest bearer. A very common way 
was for my bigarries to engage in a game of chance the 
night before starting, and so settle the order of selecting 
packages. Occasionally the strongest men used their 
strength in order to reserve for themselves the lightest 
burdens. I noticed also, as an invariable rule, that the 
worst carriers, those who had the most need of husband- 
ing their breath, were always the most talkative and 
querulous, while the best were either silent or indulged 
only in brief occasional exclamations. 

The houses I had met with hitherto had all slated 
roofs ; but at Nako, as all through Spiti, and also in 
Zanskar, thorn bushes were thickly piled on the roofs, 
and in some cases actually constituted the only roofs 
there were except beams. This is done to preserve the 
wood below, and it probably does, from the effects of 
the sun in so dry a climate ; it must also assist in keep- 
ing out the cold ; but it gives the houses a peculiar furzy 
look, and denies the people the great privilege of using 
the top of the house beneath their own as an addendum 
to their own abode. I purchased at this village a prett}^ 
large shaggy white dog, of a breed which is common all 
over China. We called it Nako, or the Nako- wallah, 
after the place of its birth ; and never did poor animal 
show such attachment to its native village. It could 
only be managed for some days' by a long stick which 
was fastened to its collar, as it did not do to let it come 
into close contact with us because of its teeth. In this 
vile durance, and even after it had got accustomed to 
us, and could be led by a chain, it was contii'iually sigh- 



HANGRANG, SPITI, AND POLYANDRY. 169 

ing, whining, howling, grovvHng, and looking piteously 
in the direction in which it supposed its birthplace to 
be. Even when we were hundreds of miles away from 
Nako, it no sooner found its chain loose than it immedi- 
ately turned on its footsteps and made along the path 
we had just traversed, being appareritly under the im- 
pression that it was only a day's journey from its be- 
loved village. It had the utmost dread of running water, 
and had to be carried or forced across all bridges and' 
fords. No dog, of whatever size, could stand against it 
in fight, for our Chinese friend had peculiar tactics of its 
own, which took its opponents completely by surprise. 
When it saw another dog, and was unchained, it imme- 
diately rushed straight at the other dog, butted it over 
and seized it by the throat or some equally tender place 
before the enemy could gather itself together. Yet 
Nako became a most affectionate animal, and was an 
admirable watch. It never uttered a sound at night 
when any stranger came near it, but quietly pinned him 
by the calf of the leg, and held on there in silence until 
some one it could trust came to the relief. The Nako- 
wallah was a most curious mixture of simplicity, fero- 
city, and affectionateness. I left him with a lady at 
Peshawar, to whose little girls he took at once, in a 
gentle and playful manner ; but when I said "Good-bye, 
Nako," he divined at once that I was going to desert 
him ; he leaped on his chain and howled and wailed. I 
should not at all wonder if a good many dogs were to 
be met with in heaven, while as many human beings 
were made to reappear as pariahs on the plains of 
India. 

Above Nako there is a small Lama monastery, and 
all the way up to it— a height of about 600 feet— there 
are terraced fields in which are grown wheat, barley, a 
kind of turnip,^. and pulse. Thus the cultivation rises 



\'^^ 



I70 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

here to almost 13,000 feet, and the crops are said to be 
very good indeed. There is some nearly level pasture- 
ground about the place, and yaks and ponies are bred 
in it for the trade into Chinese Tibet. The people are 
all Tibetans, and distinctly Tartar in feature. They are 
called Dukpas, and seem to be of rather a religious turn. 
Accordingly, they had recently been favoured by the re- 
incarnation, in a boy of their village, of the Teshu Lam.a, 
who resides at Teshu Lambu, the capital of Western 
Tibet, and who, in the Lama hierarchy, is second only 
to the Dalai or Grand Lama. 

At Nako I bade farewell to my kind friend Mr Pagell, 
to whom I had been so much indebted. On all the rest 
of my journey I was accompanied only by my native 
servants and by porters of the country, and only twice, 
shortly after parting with the Moravian, did I meet 
European travellers. These were two Indian officers 
who were crossing from Ladak to the Sutlej valley; and 
another officer, a captain from Gwalior, who had gone 
into Spiti by the Babah route, and whom I passed a 
few hours after parting with Mr Pagell. My first day's 
journey to Chango was easy, over tolerably level ground, 
which seldom required me to dismount from my zo-po, 
and on a gentle level, descending about 2000 feet to 
Chango. Tiiat place has a large extent of cultivated 
nearly level ground, and it may be called the capital of 
Hangrang, a province which formerly belonged to China, 
and of which the other large villages are Nako, Hango, 
and Li'o. The whole population of this little province 
numbers only about 3000 souls, and they seem to be 
terribly hard worked in autumn ; but then during long 
months of the year they have little to do except to 
enjoy themselves. In the afternoon two bands of wan- 
dering Spiti minstrels made their appearance, and per- 
formed before my tent. The attraction of the larger of 



HANG RANG, SPJTI, AND POLYANDRY. 171 

them was a handsome woman (two of whose husbands 
were among the minstrels — there being more at home), 
who danced and sang after the manner of Indianvnautch 
girls, but with more vigour and less impropriety. The 
senior husband of this lady ingeniously remarked that I 
could not think of giving him less than a rupee, as he 
was going to sing my praise over the whole country- 
side. 

On the next two days I had the first and shortest of 
those stretches over ground without viUages and houses 
to which I have already alluded; and my route took me 
again, for a day's journey and a night's encampment, 
into the inhospitable region of Chinese Tibet, but into a 
section of that country where I saw no Tartar young 
women or human inhabitants of any kind. From 
Chango a path leads into Spiti across the river Lee, by 
the fort of Shealkar, over the Lepcha Pass and along 
the right bank of the Lee ; but that route is said to be 
extremely difficult, and I selected a path (which surely 
cannot possibly be much better) that takes northward 
up the left side of the Lee, but at some distance from it, 
into the Chinese province of Chumurti, and, after a day's 
journey there, crosses the boundary of Spiti, and con- 
tinues, still on the same bank of the river, on to Dankar, 
the capital of Spiti. 

A long steep ascent fro mi Chango took me again on 
to the priceless 12,000 and 15,000 feet level. The early 
morning was most delicious, being clear and bright, 
without wind, and exhilarating in the highest degree, 
while nothing could be more striking than the lighting 
up by the sun of the snowy peaks around. One starts 
on these early mountain journeys in great spirits, after 
drinking about a quart of fresh milk ; but after three 
or four hours, when the rays of the sun have begun to 
make themselves felt, and there has been a certain 



172 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

amount of going down into perpendicular gorges and 
climbing painfully up the other side of them, our spirits 
begin to flag, and unless there has been a long rest and 
a good breakfast in the middle of the day, feelings of 
exasperation are in the ascendant before the camping- 
ground is reached. Early on this day's journey, I met 
the finest Tibetan mastiff which I saw in all the Hima- 
liya. It was a sheep-dog, of a dark colour, and much 
longer and larger than any of the ferocious guardians of 
Shipki. While we were talking to the shepherd who 
owned it, this magnificent creature sat watching us, 
g'rowling and showing his teeth, evidently ready to fly 
at our throats at a moment's notice; but whenever I 
spoke of purchase, it at once put a mile of hill between 
us, and no calls of its master would induce it to come 
back. It seemed at once to understand that it was 
being bargained for, and so took steps to preserve its 
own liberty ; but it need not have been so alarmed, for 
the shepherd refused to part with it on any terms. 

After passing the Chaddaldok Po by a narrow slated 
wooden bridge, we reached the top of the left bank of 
the To-tzo or Para river, which divides Hangrang from 
Chinese Tibet. The descent to the stream is about 
1500 feet, and a short way down there are some hot 
springs, with grass and willow-trees round them, and 
the shelter of great rocks. This would be by far the 
best place for camping; but, for some reason or other, 
the Chango people had determined that we should do 
so on the Chinese side of the river. On getting down 
there, with some difficulty, and crossing the saiigpa, I 
found there was no protection whatever from the sun's 
rays, which beat into the valley fiercely, and were re- 
flected, in an overpowering manner, from the white 
stones and rocks around, while the noise of the furious 
river was quite deafening. Here I had to remain with- 



HANGRANG, SPITI, AND POLYANDRY. 173 

out shelter and without food for nearly three hours, 
getting more and more exasperated as time passed on. 
After this, I usually kept two coolies within reach of 
me, with sufficient supplies to meet any emergency, and 
clothing sufficient to enable me to camp out if necessar\-; 
but I had now to learn the wisdom of such an arrange- 
ment. My servants had not got on well with the Chan- 
go people, and the latter had left us only a little wax- 
before we reached this river, under pretence of taking a 
short cut. I could not feel that the former were pro- 
perly in my hands until I got past Dankar, for tliey 
might invent some scheme for forcing me to go down 
from that place to the Sutlej valley, through the Babah 
Pass. As to the Chango bigarries, I could not say what 
their motive might be for delay ; but it was clear to me, 
now that I was alone, that it would be necessary to 
check this sort of thing at the outset, and I felt a certain 
advantage for doing so in being upon Chinese ground. 
So, when the parties did come in at last, I made my 
wrath appear to be even greater than it was ; and, see- 
ing that one of them was a sJnkar, and had a matchlock 
gun and a hunting-knife with him, I thought there could 
be nothing cowardly in making an example of him, so I 
fell upon him, and frightened one or two more. This 
was what the French call a necessary act, and it by no 
means interfered with the friendly terms on which I 
always stood with my coolies ; but I need scarcely say 
that such things should not be encouraged, and that 
everything depends upon why and how they are done. 
No formal rules can touch this subject effectually. 
Some men will travel through a country without being 
guilty of an act of violence, or even of uttering an angry 
word, and yet they leave behind a feeling of bitter hatred, 
not only towards themselves, but also towards the race 
and Government to which they belong. Other men pro- 



174 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

duce similar results by unnecessary, stupid, and cowardly 
acts of violence. It is curious that sometimes a Briton, 
who is so wildly benevolent in theory towards weak and 
uncivilised races, no sooner finds himself among- them 
than he tramples on their toes unmercifuU}^, and is 
ready to treat them in a ruthless manner. Therefore I 
must guard against the supposition that I go in for vio- 
lent treatment in any part of the world, though just as 
little do I hold that it should be entirely avoided in all 
circumstances. It is the touch of nature that makes the 
whole world kin which is the best recommendation of 
the traveller. An English officer, a great shikar, writ- 
ing to me from the wilds to the north of Kashmir, men- 
tions that the people of one village (who had been in 
Kashmir, and had noticed the ways of English officers 
there) begged him, in the name of God, not to make a 
map of the country ; and on his asking them the reason 
why, their reply was, " We do not mind you coming 
here, because you talk to us and let us sit down by you ; 

but other officers will say to us, ' D n you, go 

away.'" This often arises simply from fatigue; but 
for a traveller to neglect to make friends of the people 
among whom he sojourns, causes far more dislike to 
him than an}' positive acts of violence he is likely to 
commit ; and such is specially the case in high moun- 
tainous countries, where the population is scanty and 
travellers rare, and the people — however poor some of 
them may be, and however dirty all are — have much 
natural though not formal politeness, and are free from 
the rude presumption which has become one of the dis- 
tinguishing characteristics- of the lower classes of this 
country of late years. Englishmen are far from being 
the most unconciliatory of travellers, and they would 
be better liked in India if the Indians had more 
experience of the harshness of the ordinary German, 



HANGRAAG, SPITI, AND POLYANDRY. 175 



and the ignorant insolence of the ordinary French 
traveller. 

At this point I finally left the 'dominions of the 
Rajah of Bussahir, which include upper and lower Ku- 
nawar and the Tartar province of Hangrang-. Every-/ 
where there, except to a slight extent at Chango, the 
people had been exceedingly civil and pleasant, and 
had readily furnished me with all the carriage I re- 
quired, though they must often have done so at great 
inconvenience to themselves, owing to the harvest 
operations which were going on. In lower Kunawar 
they seemed to be a gentle and rather timid people, 
speaking an Aryan language ; and thougli the Tartars 
of the upper portion of Bussahir were of rougher and 
stronger character, yet they were quiet and 'friendly 
enough. As to the roads of these provinces, they are 
exactly in the same state as when Gerard traversed 
them, and I prefer to quote here his account of them 
rather than to give any more descriptions of my own. 
"The roads in general," he says, "consist of narrow 
footpaths skirting precipices, with often here and there 
rocks, that would seem to come down with a puff of 
wind, projecting over the head ; to avoid which it is 
necessary sometimes to bend yourself double. The way 
often leads over smooth stones steeply inclined to a 
frightful abyss, with small niches cut or worn, barely 
sufficient to admit the point of the foot ; or it lies upon 
heaps of gigantic angular fragments of granite or gneiss, 
almost piercing the shoes, and piled upon one another 
in the most horrid disorder. Where the rocks are con- 
stantly hurled from above there is not the slightest trace 
of a path, and cairns of stones are erected within sight of 
each other, to guide the traveller. There are often deep 
chasms between the rocks, and it requires a considerable 
degree of agility to clear them, and no small degree of 



176 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

caution to avoid overturning the stones, which now and 
then shake under you. . . . The most difficult part I 
saw was where ropes were used to raise and lower the 
baggage ; and this did not arise from the path havin;j 
given way. Now and then flights of stone steps occui, 
notclied trees and spars from rock to rock, rude scaffold- 
ing along the perpendicular face of a mountain, formed 
of horizontal stakes driven into the crevices, with boards 
above, and the outer ends resting on trees or slanting 
posts projecting from the clefts of the rock below. The 
most extraordinary one of this kind I ever saw was in 
the valley of Teedong. It is called Rapua, and the 
scaffolding continued for 150 feet. It was constructed 
like the other, with this difference, that six posts were 
driven horizontally into the cracks of the rocks, and 
secured by a great many wedges; there was no support 
on the outer side, and the river, which undermined it, 
rushed with incredible fury and a clamorous uproar 
beneath. The shaking of the scaffolding, together with 
the stupefying noise of the torrent, combined to give the 
traveller an uncertain idea of his safety." * To this it 
may be added, that though several bridges — sangpas 
such as the one beneath Pu, which I have already de- 
scribed — have been built of late in Kunawar, almost 
every path of that province is crossed by unbridged 
mountain torrents, which are by no means easy to pass 
in- summer during the day, when they are swollen by 
the melting snows and glaciers above. Bungalows for 
Europeans are to be found only on the Hindusthan 
and Tibet road ; and as the people, being affected by 
Hindu caste notions, will not allow a European to oc- 
cupy their houses, a tent is necessary for making much 



* "Account of Koonawur," &c., &c., by the late Capt. Alexander Gerard. 
Edited by Geoige Lloyd London, 1841. 



HANGRANG, SPITI, AND POLYANDRY. 177 

acquaintance with this most mountainous and formid- 
able country. 

Camped as we were on the Chinese side of the To-tzo 
river, we might have had a marauding visit from some 
of the nomad Tartars, dwellers in tents, who are the 
chief inhabitants of the province of Chumurti ; but, I 
fancy, the Lassa Government would be as opposed to 
any unnecessary interference ^\•ith Englishmen as it is 
to admitting them into Chinese Tibet, because such- in- 
terference might be made a handle of by the Indian 
Government. There is another door here at To-tzo into 
the dominions of the Grand Lama; but Mr Pagell hadf? 
told me that he had already tried it, and that on reach-]' 
ing the first village, he was sent back immediately, with-,-/ 
out any ceremony, and was scarcely allowed time to( ' 
feed his yak or pony. It would, no doubt, be as diffi- 
cult to communicate with the Tzong-pon of Chumurti 
as with the Tzong-pon of D'zabrung, and the Chango 
people would only go along the path to Spiti. Since 
penning m\^ former remarks on the exclusiveness of 
the Tibetans, I have noticed that Turner* makes men- 
tion of a very probable origin of it. He ascribes it not 
to any dislike to Europeans, but to "that spirit of con- 
quest which forms the common character of all Moham- 
medan states, and that hostility which their religion 
enjoins against all who are not its professors," He, in- 
deed, refers more particularly to this cause as having led 
the people of Bhotan to close the southern entrances to 
their mountainous country ; but it is extremely likely 
that it may have been more generally operative, and 
induced the Tibetans to seclude the whole dominions of 
the Grand Lama, while their dread of Europeans and 



* " An Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama, in 
Tibet." By Captain Samuel Turner. London, 1806. 



178 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

of the gold-mines being coveted, might still have acted 
afterwards to the same end. In the close of last cen- 
tury there seems to have been no unwillingness on the 
part of the Lamia Government to enter into relationships 
with British India; for first Mr George Bogle in 1774, 
and then Captain Turner in 1783, were allowed to visit 
Teshu Lambu as representatives of our Government. 
A paragraph appeared in the Times, a few days ago, 
intimating that Mr Bogle's MS. journal of his mission 
to Lassa had been discovered lately in the British 
Museum, and is to be published by the Indian Govern- 
ment, along -vNj'ith an account of the trade-routes into 
Tibet. There must surely, however, be some mistake 
here ; because, though Turner gives some account of his 
predecessor's mission, he makes no mention whatever of 
Bogle having gone to Lassa, but only to Teshu Lambu 
and the Bogda Lama. Turner's own journal gives a 
very full account of that route and of that part of 
the country ; but Mr Bogle's journal will be welcome. 
Though it contains no geographical information, yet I 
am informed it gives long reports of the envoy's conver- 
sations with the Tibetan authorities ; and it is gratifying 
to find that the Indian Government is again turning its 
thoughts to Chinese Tibet after the long time which has 
elapsed since 1783. A formal mission might be sent 
to Lassa ; or, under the treaty of Tien-tsin, passports 
might be claimed from the Chinese Foreign Office, 
allowing Englishmen, in a private or in a semi-official 
capacity, to traverse Chinese Tibet, the passports being 
either in the language of the country or accompanied 
by Tibetan translations given under imperial authority. 
As it is, the do-nothing policy of the Indian Govern- 
ment recoils injuriously upon its prestige with its own 
^subjects. It hurts our position in India for the people 
.there to know that there is a country adjoining our own 



HANG RANG, SPITI, AND POLYANDRY. 179 

territory into which Enghshmen .are s\'stematically re- 
fused entrance, while the nations of British India and of 
its tributary states are allowed to enter freely, and even 
to settle in large numbers at the capital, Lassa,* as the 
Kashmiris do. About a year and a half ago the Cal- 
cutta Chamber of Commerce addressed the Viceroy 
and the Secretary of State for India, complaining of the 
restrictions there were in the way of commerce with 
Tibet, and received answers which seemed to imply that 
their prax-er would be taken into favourable considera- 
tion whenever circumstances would allow. More re- 
cently the Friend of India well remarked that " the 
day has now come when we may justly ask the Chinese 
Emperor to take steps for our admittance into Tibet." 
Certainly the matter might well be brought to a crisis 
now ; and there would not have been the least difficulty 
about it if a more active use had been made, within the 
last few years, of our position in China. 

The path to Lari, the first village in Spiti, where we 
camped under a solitary apricot-tree, said to be the only 
tree of the kind in the whole province, was very fatiguing, 
because large portions of it could not be ridden over ; 
and there were some ticklish faces of smooth, sloping 
rock to be crossed, which a yak could hardly have got 
over, but which were managed, when riderless, in a won- 
derful manner by the shoeless gJu'mt, or mountain pony, 
which I had got at Chango. The scenery was wild and 
desolate rather than striking — no house, no tree, and 
hardly even a bush being visible. There was a great 
deal of limestone-rock on this journey ; and at some 
places it was of such a character that it might be called 



* In Western Tibet the name of this city is pronounced without an 
aspirate ; but in the centre and east of the country it is called " Lhassa," 
which, consequently, is the correct way. 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



marble. We passed several open caverns ; and in one 
of these, about a third of the way from the To-tzo river, 
I stopped for breakfast. It was a magnificent open 
arch, about fifty feet high in front, and as many in 
breadth, in the face of a precipice, and afi"orded cool 
shade until after mid-day, when the declining sun began 
to beat into it. But the Karitha river, which occurs 
immediately after, ought to be passed in the morning, 
because there is only a two-poled bridge over it, on 
which even a ghi'int cannot cross ; and the stream was so 
swollen at mid-day by the melting snow that my pony 
was nearly lost. 

The next morning I was delayed at Lari by the infor- 
mation that messengers had arrived at the other side of 
the river with a letter for me and some money, but were 
unable to cross the river, ■d.jJiuIa, which formerly existed 
there, having given way. This seemed exceedingly im- 
probable, but I went down to inquire. There was a 
double rope across the stream, and I told the messengers 
to fasten the letter to it, and so send that across, but to 
keep the money ; and I found that both were for the 
Gwalior captain whom I met near Nako, so I ordered 
the bearers to proceed to Pu in search of him. Where 
there is no bridge exactly, there is often a double rope 
of this kind across the deep-sunk rivers of the Himaliya, 
to enable the villagers on opposite sides of the gorge to 
communicate with each other ; and the rope is some- 
times strong enough to allow of a man being slung to it, 
and so worked across. If only the rope be sound, which 
cannot always be depended on, this method of progres- 
sion is preferable to iYiQ J/mla, because, though it may 
try the nerves, it does not at the same time call for pain- 
ful exertion which disturbs the heart's action. 

Po, or Poi, my next camping-place, was a very plea- 
sant village, with little streams running between willow- 



HANGRANG, SPITI, AND POLYANDRY. i8i 

trees, and with peaks and walls of snow rising over the 
precipices, and immense steep slopes of shingle imme- 
diately around. Another day took me to Dankar, under 
immense dark precipices, which lined both banks of the 
river, of slate and shale. It would be well for a prac- 
tical geologist to examine that part of the Spiti valley, 
and also the portion between Po and Lari, for it is pos- 
sible they may contain coal. For the most part, the 
way to Dankar was tolerably level and good ; but the 
height of the water of the Lee at this season compelled 
us to make a difficult detour through probably the most 
extraordinary series of gorges there is in the world. 
We moved along a dry watercourse, between perpen- 
dicular tertiary or alluvial strata, rising to hundreds and 
even to thousands of feet above. The floor of these 
clefts was fifteen or twenty feet broad, and though they 
must have enlarged considerably at the top, they ap- 
peared to do so very little to the eye. It was not rock, 
but soft deposits which rose on both sides of us ; and 
though there had been every irregularity in the lateral 
effects of the water, which had cut out the passages in 
many directions, there had been very little in its perpen- 
dicular action, for, in that respect, the water had cut 
almost straight down. High up, at the edges of these 
extraordinary ravines, the strata had been worn away so 
as to form towers, spires, turrets, and all sorts of fan- 
tastic shapes, which could be seen by looking up the 
cross passages and at the turnings. Often high above, 
and apparently ready to fall at any moment, a huge rock 
was supported on a long tower or spire of earth and 
gravel, which (being a little harder than the strata 
around, or having possibly been compressed by the 
weight of the rock) had remained standing, while the 
earth round it had crumbled or been washed away. 
These threatening phenomena were either on the edge 



1 82 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

of the clefts or rose up from their sides, and were very 
similar to the rocks which are to be seen on glaciers 
supported on pillars of ice. The way was most tortuous, 
and led into a cul-de-sac, the end pf which we had to 
ascend with difficulty. As the route I speak of involves 
a considerable detour and some climbing, no traveller 
will be taken through it if the path along the side of the 
Lee be not covered with water; and I cannot conscien- 
tiously recommend every one to go into the labyrinth. 
True, it is used by the mountaineers when the other path 
is not passable ; but they are very rarely obliged to have 
recourse to it, because they can time their journey so as 
to make the passage of the river when the snows above 
are frozen up, and consequently the water is low. True, 
also, no rocks fell during our passage, but the floor was 
paved with them ; there were hundreds of rocks which a 
mere touch would have sent down, and I saw evidence 
enough to prove that whole sides of the ravines some- 
times give way; so that, unless the traveller had a 
charmed life, his curiosity would expose him to a very 
fair chance of being suddenly knocked on the head by a 
stone a ton weight, or buried under hundreds of feet of 
tertiary strata. 

It is similar strata which afford so extraordinary a 
position and appearance to Dankar, the capital of 
Spiti, which is a British Himaliyan province, under an 
Assistant Commissioner, who resides in the warmer and 
more fruitful Kulu valley. This town is perched about 
a thousand feet above the Lee, on the ledges and towers 
of an immense ridge of soft strata, which descends 
towards the river, but breaks off with a sudden fall after 
affording ground for the fort, houses, and Lama temples 
of Dankar. Its appearance is s6 extraordinar}^ that I 
shall not attempt any description of it until able to 
present my readers wath a copy of its photograph. It 



HANGRANG, SPITI, AND POLYANDRY. 183 

has only its picturesqueness, however, to recommend it, 
for the interior is as miserable as that of the smallest 
Himdliyan village; and the people, heing under British 
rule,, have of course a proper contempt for British 
travellers, though so little troubled by them. No one 
ofi'ered to show us where to pitch our tents, or to render 
any other civility. The niukea was away, and his re- 
presentative was both insolent and exorbitant in his 
demands. Here was the style which he adopted, and 
was supported in by the people about him. As was 
afterwards proved by my making him . produce his 
nerrick, or official list of prices, he began by demanding 
double price from us for the sheep and grain we 
wanted ; and when we said quite civilly that he was 
charging too much, he at once answered' impudentl}-, 
and without the least excuse for doing so, "Oh ! if you 
want to use force, by all means take what you want for 
nothing, and. I shall report the matter to the Com- 
missioner in Kulii." Fortunately for him there was no 
Chinese territory near ; but, through the medium of the 
young schoolmaster of Dankar, who understood Hin- 
diisthani, I made him and his friends somewhat ashamed 
of his conduct ; and it was the more inexcusable be- 
cause the prices of the nerrick are fixed at a higher 
rate than those which prevail, in order that there may 
be no hardship in affording travellers the right of pur- 
chasing supplies — a right which it is absolutely necessary 
that they should have, in order to travel at all in a district 
of country where tliere are so few open markets. 

I have referred more than once in these chapters 
to the polyandry of the people among whom I so- 
journed ; and though this delicate subject has been 
alluded to in several publications, it is sufficiently novel 
to the general reader to call for a little explanation 
here. Indeed, I find there are many well-educated 



184 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

persons who do not even know what polyandry means. 
It has a very botanical kind of sound ; and its German 
equivalent Vielin'dnnerci^ though coarse and expressive, 
does not throw much light upon the subject. A mis- 
take also has been made in contrasting poh'andry with 
poh'^gamy ; whereas, being the marriage of one woman 
with two or more men, it is itself a form of polygamy, 
and ought properly tc be contrasted with poh'gany, or 
the marriage of one man to two or more women. But 
the polyandry of Central Asia must further be limited 
to the marriage of one woman to two or more brothers, 
for no other form is found there, so far as I could 
learn. 

This curious and revolting custom exists all over the 
countr}^ of the Tibetan-speaking people ; that is to say, 
from China to the dependencies of Kashmir and Afghan- 
istan, with the exception of Sikkim, and some other 
of the provinces on the Indian side of the Himaliya, 
where, though the Tibetan language may in part prevail^ 
yet the people are either Aryan in race, or have been 
much influenced by Aryan ideas. I found polyandry to 
exist commonly from Taranda, in the Sutlej valley, a 
few marches from Simla, up to Chinese Tibet, and from 
there to Siiru, where it disappeared in the polygamy of 
the Mohammedan Kashmiris. But it is well known to 
exist, and to be an almost universal custom, all through 
Chinese Tibet, Little Tibet, and nearly all the Tibetan- 
speaking provinces. It is not confined to that region, 
however, and is probably the common marriage custom 
of at least thirty millions of respectable people. It is 
quite unnecessary to go deeply into the origin and 
working of this very peculiar marital arrangement ; but 
it is well worthy of notice, as showing how purely 
artificial a character such arrangements may assume, 
and what desperate means are had recourse to in order 



HANGRANG, SPITI, AND POLYANDRY. 185 



to get rid of the pressure caused by the acknowledged 
law of population. 

In the most elaborate and valuable compilation there 
is on Lamaism — " Die Lamaische Hierarchic und 
Kirche," by Carl Friedrich Koeppen — that author, in 
his brief reference to this subject, clears the religion of 
Tibet of any responsibility for polyandry, and asserts 
that it existed in the country before the introduction of 
Budhism, having arisen from the pressure of popula- 
tion.^ In Ceylon, which is a great Budhist country, 
polyandry also exists, and, at least till very lately, has 
been legally acknowledged by the British Government ; 
but I have not found anything which proves that the 
religion of the Singalese is any more responsible for 
the custom than is the British Government itself. We 
know also that polyandry has existed in non-Budhistic 
countries, and even in Great Britain, along with worse 
marriage customs, as Caesar testifies in his " De Bello 
Gallico " (lib. v. xiv.), when he sa}'s, " Uxores habent 
deni duodenique inter se communes, et maxime, fratres 
Glim fratribus, et parentes cum liberis." Traces are to be 
found of it among the ancient Indo- Aryans, as in the 
Mahabarat, where Dranpadi is r'^presented as married to 
the five sons of Pandu ; and in the Ramayana, where the 
giant Viradha attacks the two divine brothers Rama and 
Lakshaman, and their wife Sita, saying, " Why do you 
two devotees remain with one woman .-^ Why do you, 
O profligate wretches ! thus corrupting the devout 
sages .'' " Even so early as in the Rig- Veda Sanhita 



* " Die Schuld dieser widi-igen und unnaliiiiicheii Einrichtung 
tragt iibrigens keinesweges der Lamaismiis ; der Gebrauch bestand 
vielmehr bei den Bodpa langst vor ihrer Bekanntscliaft mit der Religion 
des Slialcjasohnes und findet seine Erklarung und Entschuldigung in der 
iibergrossen Armutli des Sclnieelandes und in der aus dieser entspringenden 
Nothwendigkeit, dem Anvvachsen der Bevolkerung Schranken zu setzen." 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



(Mandala I. Hymn 117, v. 5) there is some trace of 
the custom in the passage, " Aswins, your admirable 
(horses), bore the car which you had harnessed (first) to 
the goal, for the sake of honour ; and the damsel who 
M^as the prize came through affection to you and 
acknowledged your husbandship, sa3'ing 'you are (m}') 
lords.' " I think polyandry of a kind is even sanctioned 
in the laws of Menu. 

There are many other traces of the existence of poly- 
andr}'- in the ancient world, and it also appears in various 
countries in our own or in very recent times. As to the 
Singalese, Sir Emerson Tennent says that " polyandry 
prevails throughout the interior of Ceylon, chiefly 
amongst the wealthier classes. . . . As a general rule, 
the husbands are members of the same family, and 
most frequently brothers." Here there is a shght dif- 
ference from the polyandry where the husbands are 
always brothers. The Abbe Desgodins speaks oi proches 
parents^ or near relatives in general, being, joined in 
this relationship, as well as brothers, in the east of the 
country ; but I repeatedly inquired into that point, and 
on consulting Herr Jaeschke at Herrnhut in regard to 
it, he said he had nevct known or heard of any other 
kind of pol3^andry in Tibet except fraternal. Polyandry 
notably exists among the Todas of Southern India, and 
it has been found in regions very far distant from each 
other, as among the Kalmucks, the Tasmanians, and 
the Iroquois of North America ; but nowhere does it take 
such a singular form as among the Nairs of the Malabar 
coast, who are nominally married* to girls of their own 
caste, but never have any intercourse with their wives ; 
while these latter may have as many lovers as they 
please, if the lovers are Brahmins, or Nairs other than 
the husband. 

Such arrangements, however, are mere freaks, and are 



HANG RANG, SPITI, AND POLYANDRY. 187 

not to be compared with the regular, extensive, and 
solidified system of Tibetan polyandry. General Cun- 
ningham, in his valuable work on Ladak, says that the 
system " prevails, of course, only among the poorer 
classes ; " but my experience was that it prevailed among 
all classes, and was superseded by polygany only where 
the people were a good deal in contact with either 
Hindus or Mohammedans. Turner, who had so much 
opportunity of seeing Western Tibet, is quite clear on 
this point as regards that part of the country, for he says 
(p. 349) — " The number of husbands is not, as far as I 
could learn, defined or restricted within any limits. It 
sometimes happens that in a small family there is but 
one male ; and the number may seldom perhaps exceed 
that which a native of rank, during my residence at 
Teshoo Loomboo, pointed out to me in a family resident 
in the neighbourhood, in which five brothers were then 
living together very happily with one female, under the 
same connubial compact. Nor is this sort of compact 
confined to the lower ranks of people alone ; it is found 
also frequently in the most opulent families." 

I met only one case in which the number of husbands 
exceeded that of the instance mentioned above. It was 
that of the family of the niiikea at Pu, in which six bro- 
thers were married to one wife, but the youngest of the 
brothers was quite a boy. The husband I saw must 
have been over thirty ; and as he had two elder brothers, 
the arrangement, as a whole, struck one as even more 
revolting than usual. Instances of three. and five hus- 
bands were quite common ; but, without having gone 
rigidly into the matter, I should say that the most in- 
stances of poh-andry were those of two husbands, and 
that, not because there was any objection to five or six, 
but simply because no greater number of brothers was 
usually to be found in a family, as might have been 



i88 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

expected from such a system, and as also one of the 
great ends which that *S3'stem is designed to effect. 

As to the working of polyandry in Tibet, I noticed no 
particular evidence of its evil effects, though doubtless 
they exist ; and in this respect I am at one with the 
other European travellers, with the single exception of 
the Abbe Desgodins, who draws a very frightful picture 
of the state of morals in the eastern part of the country. 
He says : " Les hommes riches peuvent avoir autant de 
femmes qu'ils le desirent, sans compter que quand ils 
sont en voyage, et qu'ils font visite a leurs amis, la poli- 
tesse veut qu'on leur en prete partout. Au Thibet on se 
prete sa femme comme on se prete une paire de bottes 
ou un couteau. . . . Les Thibetans n'ont pas non plus 
le moindre souci de I'honneur de leur filles ; celle qui est 
devenue mere trouve rneme plus facilement a se marier, 
par la raison que celui qui I'achete est certain qu'elle 
n'est pas sterile ; ce devergonaage de mceurs est cause 
d'une sterilite generale." * There is probably some 
exaggeration here ; and, -making allowance for that, the 
description would apply to most semi-civilised races, 
and need not be charged to the fault of polyandry. The 
accusation brought by the worthy Abbe against the 
young persons of Tibet is precisely the same as that 
which Sir Anthony VVeldon made against the Scotch in 
the time of James VI., f and can be brought, even at the 
present day, against a considerable portion of the agri- 
cultural and pastoral population of Scotland. It is 
absurd for Europeans to hold up their hands in holy 
horror at the immorality which they may observe in 
ruder and less highly favoured countries, when our own 

* "La Mission du Thibet de 1855 a 1870." Verdun, 1S72. 
+ "A Perfect Description of the People and Country of Scotland." 
Ijondon, 1659. 



HA NGRA NG, SPIT/, A ND P OL VA NDR V. 1 89 

centres of civilisation present, in that respect, such curious 
results. Fraternal polyandry is not merely opposed both 
to artificial arrangements and the highest morality, but 
even to our natural instincts. But there is no sense in 
charging it with evils which we see existing everywhere. 
It is more revolting than the prostitution, or unlegalised 
polyandry, of the West ; but its lesson will be lost if it 
be viewed otherwise than in the cold white light of 
reason. 

It is almost impossible for us to conceive of such a 
system being in operation, and of its allowing room for 
affection between relatives ; and so it may be well to 
note that it exists. This could only happen among a 
race of a peculiarly placid, unpassionate temperament, 
as the Turanians unquestionably are, except in their fits 
of demoniacal cruelty. They have no hot blood, in our 
sense of the phrase, and all interests are subordinate to 
those of the family. This supreme family feeling pre- 
vents any difficulty arising in connection with the chil- 
dren, who are regarded as scions of the house rather than 
of any particular member- of it. It has been said that, 
where there is more than one husband, the paternity of 
the child is unknown, but that is doubtful, though all the 
husbands are held responsible, and there is no notice- 
able difference in the relationship of a child to his differ- 
ent fathers. All this would be impossible in a race with 
strong passions, or where the element of individuality is 
strongly developed ; but it is exactly in these respects 
that the Turanians are most deficient. 

Of course there is a large number of surplus women 
under this polyandric system, and they are provided for 
in the Lama nunneries, where they learn to read and 
copy the Tibetan Scriptures, and to engage in religious 
services. The nunneries have usually a certain amount 
of land attached to them, which is cultivated by the 



I90 THE ABODE OF SNO W. 

occupants, who also hire out their services in the harvest 
season, I have even had my baggage carried by Lama 
nuns, when there was a pressure of occupation, and 
observed nothing particular in their demeanour, except 
that it was a little more reserved than that of the other 
women. Of course accidents do happen occasionally; 
but the excitement which they cause is a proof that 
they are not very common. When I was at Pii, a great 
noise was caused by a Lama nun — the daughter of a 
wealthy zemindar — having suddenly increased the popu- 
lation of that village, in defiance of the law of popula- 
tion and her holy vow. About a year before, a visit 
had been made to Pii by a celebrated Lama from the 
interior o( Chinese Tibet, whose claims to sanctity were 
so high that the zemindar invited him to stay in his 
house and expound the Tibetan Scriptures. The nun 
came down to these reunions from her convent, a few 
hundred feet up the mountain-side, and the consequence 
was the event which I have just noticed. Meanwhile 
the holy man had meanly, but judicioush', gone 
back into Chinese Tibet. H'l was hopelessly be\'ond 
reach ; and the scandal being grcat, the father, both on 
his own account and on that of his daughter, had to 
pay about Rs. 300 in all, to che convent, to the scanda- 
lised village, and to the state. Such offences are readily 
condoned on a sufficient monetary fine being paid ; but 
I heard also that the nun would not be reinstated in her 
former position without undergoing penance and mani- 
festing contrition. Such a sin, however, can hardl}- tell 
against her long, if her conduct be correct afterwards ; for 
the superior of this very monastery had herself an illegiti- 
mate daughter, who was enrolled among the sisterhood. 
Some sects of the Lamas are allowed to marry, but those 
who do not are considered more holy ; and in no sect are 
the nuns allowed to marry, and they, as well as most of 



HANGRANG, SPITI, AND POLYANDRY. 191 

the monks, take a vow of absolute continence. I am 
scarcely in a position to have any decided opinion as to 
how far this vow is observed, but am inclined to believe 
that it is so usually, notwithstanding the exceptions to 
the rule. 

The Lama church does not concern itself with the 
marriage union, though its priests often take part in 
the ceremonies accompanying the bridal, — as, for in- 
stance, in fixing upon an auspicious day. Marriages are 
often concluded at a very early age, by the parents of 
the parties, and sometimes when the latter are children. 
In such cases the bride and bridegroom often live for 
years separate, in -the houses of their respective parents. 
When the matter has not been previously arranged by 
his father, the young man who wishes to marry goes to 
the parents of the girl he has selected with a gift of 
cJioug, a species of beer which is brewed among the 
mountains, and this he partakes of along with them. A 
second visit of the same kind follows, and then a third, 
when he meets with the object of his choice, and the 
nuptials are arranged. -In some parts of the country 
more valuable presents, and even gifts-, of money, are 
expected, there being a great deal of difference in local 
usage as to the preliminarie,?.- Women have property in 
their own right ; and, as a ):-ule, childless women are not 
regarded in any particular -manner. The choice of a 
wife is the right of the elder brother ; and among the 
Tibetan-speaking people it universally prevails that the 
contract he makes is understood to involve a marital 
contract with all the other brothers, if they choose to 
avail themselves of it. 

We haye already seen what Koeppen says as to the 
origin of this hideous polyandry. Herr Jaeschke also 
assured me that he knew of no polyandric traditions in 
Tibet, and that the system there must be indefinitely 



192 THE ABODE OF SNO W. 

old. The probability is that it has descended from a state 
of society somewhat similar to that which at present 
exists in the Himaliya, but more primitive, ruder, and 
uninfluenced by the civilisations of India and China ; 
while those who believe that human beings at one time 
herded together very much like flocks of animals, see in it 
a transition from a still more savage past. There is not 
much use in speculating on, the origin of customs when 
that origin lies concealed in the mist of antiquity. 
Such speculation takes very much the shape of finding 
or inventing uses w4iich the custom under discussion 
might subserve ; but that is a very unsatisfactory region 
of thought where there are no historical facts to afford 
guidance. All we can really say on this subject is, that 
polyandry does subserve certain useful ends. In a pri- 
mitive and not very settled state of society, wdien the 
head of a family is often called away on long mercantile 
journeys, or to attend at court, or for. purposes of war, 
it is a certain advantage that he should be able to leave 
a relative in his place whose interests are bound up with 
his own. Mr Talboys Wheeler has suggested that poly- 
andry arose among a pastoral people, whose men were 
away from their families for months at a time, and 
where the duty of protecting these families would be 
undertaken by the brothers in turn. The system cer- 
tainly answers such an end, and I never knew of a case 
where a polyandric wife was left without the society of 
one at least of her husbands. But the great, the notable 
end which polyandry serves, is that of checking the 
increase of population in regions from which emigvation 
is difficult, and where it is also difficult to -increase the 
means of subsistence. That the Malthusian law, or 
something very like it, is in operation, is now all but 
universally admitted by political economists. Theie is 
a tendency on the part of population to increase at a 



HANGRANG, SPITI, AND POLYANDRY. 193 

greater ratio tlian its power of producing food ; and itw 
more effectual me^ns to check that tendency could well 
be devised than the system of Tibetan polyandry taken 
in conjunction with the Lama monasteries and nunneries. 
Very likely it was never deliberately devised to do so, 
and came down from some very rude state of society ; 
but, at all events, it must have been found exceedingly 
serviceable in repressing population among what Koep- 
pen so well calls the snow-lands of Asia. If population 
had increased there at the rate it has in England during 
this centur}', frightful results must have followed either 
to the Tibetans or to their immediate neighbours. As it 
is, almost every one in the Himaliya has either land and 
a house of his own, or land and a house in which he has 
a share, and which provide for his protection and sub- 
sistence. The people are hard-worked in summer and 
autumn, and they are poor in the sense of having small 
possessions and few luxuries ; but they are not poor in 
the sense of presenting a very poor class at a loss how 
to procure subsistence. I Vv'as a little surprised to find 
that one of the Moravian missionaries defended the 
polyandry of the Tibetans, not as a thing to be approved 
of in the abstract, or tolerated among Christians, but as 
good for the heathen of so sterile a country. In taking 
this view, he proceeded on the argument that super- 
abundant population, in an unfertile country, must be a 
great calamity, and produce " eternal warfare or eternal 
want." Turner took also a similar view, and he ex- 
pressly says, " The influence of this custom on the 
manners of the people, as far as I could trace, has 
not been unfavourable. . . . To the privileges of un- 
bounded liberty the wife here adds the character of mis- 
tress of the family and companion of her husbands." 
But, lest so pleasing a picture may delude some 
strong-minded ladies to get up an agitation for the 



194 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

establishment of polyandry in the West, I must say it 
struck me that the having many husbands sometimes 
appeared to be only having many masters and in- 
creased toil and trouble. I also am by no means sure 
that the Tibetans are so chivalrous as to uphold poly- 
andry because they regard " the single possession of one 
woman as a blessing too great for one individual to 
aspire to." Nor shall I commit myself to the ingenious 
opinion that "marriage amongst them seems to be con- 
sidered rather as an odium — a heavy burden — the 
weight and obloquy of which a whole family are dis- 
posed to lessen by sharing it among them." 



CHAPTER VI. 

SHIGRI AND ITS GLACIERS. — THE ALPS AND HIMALIYA. 

The valley of Spiti is secluded in such a very formid- 
able manner from the civilised world that it has very 
few European visitors ; and though it has frequently 
been conquered, yet it is difficult to conceive of its being 
so, or of any one finding it worth while to conquer it. 
This province is situated in the centre of the Himaliya, 
with two great snowy ranges (not to speak of minor ones) 
between it and the plains of India. There are very few 
parts in Spiti where we can get below 12,000 feet, while 
it contains innumerable points which are 20,000 feet 
high, and its great valley has an average elevation of 
about 12,800 feet. Elevated and secluded though this 
province be, it is not to be compared in these admirable 
respects with Zanskar ; but it is tolerably well raised out 
of the world. On the east, access can be had to it by 
the 1 8,000- feet Manerung Pass, or the difficult To-tzo 
route. From the south, the only entrance is by the 
desolate Babah Pass, which is 15,000 feet high, and 
closed great part of the year. To the west, the direction 
which I am about to pursue, there are no means of exit 
or access except over glaciers and an utterly desolate 
region, which requires days in order to traverse it. To 
the north there are a few passes like the Parangla 
(18,000 feet), which take towards Ladak : but nobody 
need go to Ladak in search of civilisation. I did see one 
solitary apricot-tree at Lari, and some fine willow-trees 
at Po ; but that about exhausts my arboreal recollections 



196 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

of Spiti, or Pi'tf, as the people of the country more 
usually call it. There are a good many willow, birch, 
and thorn bushes ; but still there must be a great 
scarcity of fuel. Notwithstanding that it is about 
seventy miles long, with a breadth of fifty miles in 
its upper portion, its population amounts to only about 
2300 persons, whose language is Tibetan, and whose 
appearance has some Tartar characteristics. The 
minstrels, to whom I have already alluded, do not 
hold land, and afe called Bedas. Captain Harcourt 
says, " Many of the men resemble veritable Calmucks ; 
and with few exceptions fall, as do the women, very far 
below the European standard of beauty ; indeed, for 
positive hideousness of countenance, the people of Spiti 
are perhaps pre-eminent in the British Empire." For 
absolute hideousness, so great as to be almost beauty 
of a kind, I would back a Spiti old woman against the 
whole human race ; and the production of one in Europe, 
with her extraordinary ornaments, could scarcely fail 
to create a great sensation. The dress of both sexes 
may be described as tunics and trousers of thick 
woollen stuff, with large- boots, partly of leather, partly 
of blanket, which come up to the knee, and which they 
are not fond of taking off at any time. In order to 
obtain greater warmth they often put a quantity of flour 
into these boots, beside their legs, which I fancy is a 
practice peculiar to Spiti, but might be introduced else- 
where. The ornaments are very much the same as those 
of the Chinese Tartars, except that the women have 
sometimes nose-rings, which adds to their peculiar 
fascination. Not being affected by caste ideas, as even 
the Lamaists of Kunawar are, the people of Spiti make 
no objections to a European eating with them or entering 
their houses, unless they happen to be rather ashamed 
of the interior ; but the houses differ very little from 



SHIGRI AND ITS GLACIERS. 197 

those of Zanskar, one of which I shall describe in detail, 
having had to spend two days in it during a great snow- 
storm. There is very little rainfall in Spiti ; from No- 
vember to April all the streams are frozen up, and it is 
rather a mystery to me how the people obtain sufficient 
fuel to support life during that long severe period. In 
summer the fields are watered by artificial channels 
leading from the mountain torrents ; and it has often a 
very lively effect vdien the waters are let loose around 
and over a number of fields. The chief crops are wheat, 
barley, and peas, the latter affording a valuable addition 
to the traveller's food, but not so readily purchasable 
as the grain. One need not look for sugar, fruit, or any 
other of the luxuries of life, in this exceedingly sterile 
province. Yaks there are in abundance, along with 
zo-pos and the common Indian ox ; and the ghiuits, or 
small ponies, are famous for their sure-fcotedness, their 
sagacity, and their power of carrying their riders safely 
up and down the most terrible, dangerous, and fatiguing 
paths. Horse-racing, of a very irregular sort, is indulged 
in occasionally ; and the blacksmiths of Spiti are famous 
in High Asia for their manufacture of steel bits and 
stirrups. The great substitute for paper here, as in all 
these snow-lands, is the inner bark of the birch-tree, 
which is of a light yellow colour, and very soft, though 
of a close texture. It is very good for all wrapping 
purposes, and could be used for writing on if needed. 
The people are singularly exempt from disease, being, 
to all appearance, afflicted only by a few not bad cases 
of skin disease, which can easily be accounted for by 
their persistent avoidance of washing. Spiti is Budhistic ; 
and there are nearly 400 Lamas in the province, most of 
whom are bound to celibacy, and only about a dozen 
nuns, — though that must be quite enough, if it be true, 
as Captain Harcourt, lately the Assistant Commissioner 



198 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

for the three British provinces of Kulu, Lahaul, and 
Spiti, alleges, that " there are at times scenes of gross 
debauchery in the monasteries — a state of things which 
can be believed when Lamas and nuns are living pro- 
miscuously together." As polyandry exists in the 
province, the surplus women have to remain in the 
houses of their parents or other relatives ; but there is 
no reason to consider the Spiti people as immoral, though 
they indulge in heavy drinking on special occasions ; 
and, like most mountaineers, they are exceedingly 
enamoured of their own lofty country, treeless and 
sterile though it be, and are extremely unwilling to 
go down any of the passes which lead to more genial 
climes. The poverty of this province, however, has not 
saved it from more than one conquest. Nearly a thou- 
sand years ago, it was under the Lassa Government; 
and two centuries after, it fell under the dominion of 
Kublai Khan. In more recent times, it was sometimes 
subject to the Chinese Tartars and sometimes to the 
chiefs of Baltistan or of Ladak, according to which party 
happened to have the upper hand in the neighbourhood. 
It came into our possession about thirty years ago, 
through an arrangement with the Maharajah of Kashmir, 
into whose power it had fallen, and was conjoined with 
Kulu under an Assistant Commissioner in 1849. 

Dankar, the capital of Spiti, should properly be 
spelled " Drankhar," which means "The cold fort." KIim\ 
with an aspirate, signifies a fort, as Dan-kar is, or rather 
was ; but ktxr means white. Hence it has been a decided 
error to call this place Dankar; but I shall leave the 
correction of it to Dr W. W. Hunter and his department, 
for though Spiti does not boast of a post-office, yet it is 
a British province. The precise height of this village 
is 12,776 feet, so it may easily be conceived that the 
nights were intensely cold in our light tents, and that 



SHIGRI AND ITS GLACIERS. igg 

there was some little difficulty in rousing my people in 
the morning. From Dankar, or rather from Kazeh or 
Kaja, a day's journey beyond, my course was a novel 
one, almost unknown to Himaliyan tourists. When 
considering, at Simla, how I should best see the Hima- 
liya and keep out of the reach of the Indian monsoon, I 
had the advantage of an old edition of Montgomerie's 
map, in which the mountains and rivers are laid in, but ( 
which is now out of print ; and I saw from it that the lie 
of the Himaliya to the north-west presented a series of 
rivers and elevated valleys, in the very centre of the 
ranges, which would enable me to proceed to Kashmir 
by almost a new route, and one of great interest. I 
could get no information about this route, further than 
was conveyed by the admission of a Panjabi captain, 
who had been in the Himaliya, and who said on my 
consulting him on the subject, " Well, I should think it 
would be very possible." It certainly proved to be so, 
seeing that I got over the ground ; and I got some infor- 
mation regarding it from the Moravian missionaries. 

What I had to do was to follow up the Lee or Spiti 
river almost to its source, then to cross the Kanzam Pass 
into the frightfully desolate Shigri valley, or valley of , 
the Chandra river ; to follow down that river to its junc- 
tion with the Bhaga ; to follow up the Bhaga for a few 
marches, and then to cross over the tremendous Shinkal 
Pass on to the Tsarap Lingti river, and the valleys 
through which streams flow into the upper Indus. It is 
the first portion of this journe}^ that I have now to speak 
of; and to render it intelligible, it is only necessary for 
the reader to follow up the Spiti river as far as he can 
get, to cross the mountains at its source, and then to 
descend the Chandra river to its junction with the 
Bhaga. 

At Kazeh, a day's journey from Dankar, I left the 



200 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

usual track, which goes over the Parangla Pass to 
Changchemmo and Leh, and which involves a journey 
that is on many grounds objectionable. Here I had the 
choice of two routes, one on the left and one on the right 
bank of the Lee, but chose the latter ; and as the former 
was within sight great part of the way, I had the oppor- 
tunity of observing that it was considerably the worst of 
the two, though an inexperienced traveller might rashly 
conclude that nothing could be worse than the one I 
followed. To Kazeh we kept up the left bank of the 
Lee, which was no longer sunk in deep gorges, but had 
a broad open valley, and spreads itself here and there 
amid a waste of white stones. Here I crossed the river, 
at a point where the banks drew close together, and on 
what, by courtesy, might be called a wooden bridge. 
This sangpa is very high and shaky, and the central por- 
tion of it is composed of three logs, without any parapet, 
and with loose branches laid across it, which are awkward 
and dangerous to step upon. Stopping for breakfast at 
the village of Kharig, I saw the large Lama monastery 
of Ki on the other side of the river, perched on the top 
of a hill in a very extraordinary manner. This monas- 
tery, according to Csoma de Koros, was established in 
the eleventh century of the Christian era by a pupil of 
the well-knoAvn Atisha. It is a celebrated place ; but 
(whether or not it contains any portion of the dozen 
Spiti nuns) its monks do not seem to exercise much 
civilising-influence in their own neighbourhood, for the 
people of Kharig were much more like thorough savages 
than the residents of any other Himali}-an village which 
I entered. It being rather a liot day, the children, and 
even bays and girls of ten and twelve }'ears old, were 
entirely naked ; and the number of children was far 
beyond the usual proportion to that of households. 
Morang, where we camped, is a small village even for 



SHIGRI AND ITS GLACIERS. 



these mountains, and is about i3,oco feet high; but it 
had an intelligent and exceedingly obliging im'ikea — the 
functionary who provides for the wants of travellers — 
who had been educated by the Moravian brethren in 
Lahaul, and spoke Hindusthani. There was a wonderful 
view from this place both up and down the great valley 
of the Spiti river, bounded downwards by the Rupa- 
khago, or the snowy mountains of the Manerung Pass, 
and upwards by a grand 20,00C-feet peak, supporting an 
enormous bed of neve. Both on this day's journey and 
on the next, the banks of the river and the mountains 
above them presented the most extraordinary castellated 
forms. In many parts the bed of the Lee was hundreds 
of yards broad, and was composed of white shingle, great 
part of which was uncovered by water. The steep banks 
above this white bed had been cut by the action of the 
elements, so that a series of small fortresses, temples, and 
spires seemed to stand out from them. Above these, 
again, gigantic mural precipices, bastions, towers, castles, 
citadels, and spires rose up thousands of feet in height, 
mocking, in their immensity and grandeur, the puny 
efforts of human art, and yet presenting almost all the 
shapes and effects which our architecture has been able 
to devise ; while, yet higher, the domes of pure white 
snow and glittering spires of ice far surpassed in perfec- 
tion, as well as ih immensit}^, all the Moslem musjids 
and minars. It was passing strange tofind the inorganic 
world thus anticipating, on so gigantic a scale, some 
of the loftiest efforts of human art ; and it is far from 
unhkely that the builders of the Taj and of the Pearl 
Mosque at Agra only embodied in marble a dream of 
the snows of the Himaliya or of the Hindu Kush. 

After leaving Morang, Ave crossed another shaky 
sangpa over the Gyundi river, and another one before 
reaching Kiotro, where we encamped in a sort of hollow 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



beyond the village. The place seemed shut in on every 
side ; but that did not preserve us from a frightful wind 
which blew violently all night, and, with the thermo- 
meter at 43°, rendered sleep nearly impossible in my 
tent. There was a good path on the left bank of the Lee 
for my next day's journey from Kiotro to Loisar ; and 
the rock-battlements were more wonderful than ever'; 
but just before reaching that latter place, we had to cross 
to the right bank of the river by means of a very un- 
pleasant j'/mla, the side-ropes of which were so low as 
to make walking along it painful. In Loisar, instead of 
using my tent, I occupied a small mud-room which the 
Government of British India has been good enough to 
erect for the benefit of travellers. I do not know what 
the reason may be for this unusual act of generosity. 
Perhaps it is because Loisar is one of the highest villages 
in the world, though it is inhabited all the year round, 
being 13,395 feet above the level of the sea. Notwith- 
standing this extreme altitude, it has a good many fields 
in which various kinds of grain are cultivated, and there 
is not a little pasture-land in its neighbourhood. The 
care of a paternal Government had even gone the length 
of keeping this room clean and free fromjnsects; so it 
was a pleasant change from my tent, the more so as it 
began to rain, and rain at 13,395 feet very soon displays 
a tendency to turn into sleet and snow. A tent is very 
healthy and delightful up to a certain point; but it 
hardly affords any higher temperature than that of the 
external air; and on these great altitudes at night the 
air cools down so rapidly, and to such an extent, that it 
may be a source of danger to some people. There is a 
safeguard, however, in the purity of the Himaliyan air 
and in our continuously open-air life among the moun- 
tains. I have been injured by the unusual severity of 
:the winter this year in England; yet got no harm, but 



SHIGRI AND ITS GLACIERS. 203 

rather positive benefit, from camping on snow for nights 
together in my thin tent in Zanskar and Siiru, and in 
much more severe weather than we have had here lately. 
Still, the paternal Government's mud-palace at Loisar 
was an agreeable change, and atforded me the luxury of 
a sounder sleep than I had had for several nights. The 
Nako-wallah, however, did not at all appreciate the 
advantages of having a solid habitation about him. I 
should have thought it would have been simple enough 
even for his tastes ; but nothing would satisfy that fleecy 
dog until he was allowed to lie outside of the door instead 
of inside, though that latter position exposed him to 
hostile visits from all the dogs of the village ; and there 
was a ferocious growling kept .up all night outside the 
door, which, however, was music to me compared with 
the howling of the wind about my tent, to which I had 
been exposed for two or three nights previously. 

At Loisar I had to arrange for a very hard journey of 
five days, over a wild stretch of country where there are 
no villages, no houses, and scarcely any wood, so that 
supplies of every kind have to be taken for it. In order 
to get into Lahaul, and hit the junction of the Chandra 
and Bhaga rivers on the cut road which runs from Simla 
to Leh, two routes are available from Loisar, both in- 
volving a stretch of days over a desolate and glacier- 
covered country. They both pursue the same course for 
nearly a day's- journey on to the gradual western slope 
of the Kanzam or Kanzal Pass ; but before crossing it, 
one route takes off to the right, up the highest portion of 
the valley of the Chandra river, until it strikes the cut 
road to Leh, near the top of the Barra Lacha Pass 
(16,221 feet), and then descends the Bhaga to the junc- 
tion of j:he two rivers, along the cut road and down a 
valley where there are plenty of villages. This was the 
road which I wished to follow, because I always pre- 



204 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

ferred keeping as high up as possible ; but the people at 
Loisar, who were to furnish me with coolies, declared 
against that route, and implored me not to insist upon 
going by it. There is a very difficult river to be forded, 
\ the water of which is so rapid that the bigarries, or 
porters, can only manage to get through by holding one 
another's hands and forming a long line. When Sir 
Douglas Forsyth was Commissioner of the Hill States, 
he passed over this route, losing two of his bigarries 
(women, I think) in this river ; and though he com- 
pensated their families, this unfortunate event is ad- 
vanced to this day as a conclusive reason against the 
Barra Lacha route, and will probably be so advanced for 
centuries, if the world lasts as long. 

Hence I had to adopt the other route, which proved 
to be quite elevated and cold enough. It crosses the 
Kanzam Pass at a height of almost 15,000 feet, and 
then goes down the Chandra river on its left bank, 
through what is called by the natives the Shigri valley, 
until it reaches the cut road to Leh at the foot, and on 
the north side, of the Rotang Pass, which is 13,000 feet 
high, and the mountains of which separate Lahaul from 
the Kulu valley. Immediately after that point, this 
route crosses the river to the village of Kokser, and pro- 
ceeds from thence to the junction of the Chandra and 
Bhaga, from whence there are various, but all rather 
difficult, routes leading to Kashmir. The two routes I 
have mentioned, which meet at the head of the Chandra- 
Bhaga — or what is almost equivalent to them, these two 
rivers before their junction — enclose a large extent of 
great glaciers and immense snowy mountains, with no 
habitations, and almost' inaccessible to human beings. 
An equally high range runs down the left bank of the 
Chandra (the route which I followed), throwing out its 
. glaciers down to and almost across the river ; so that it 



SHIGRI AND ITS GLACIERS. 205 

may easily be conceived that few portions even of the 
HimaHya, which are at all accessible, afford such a stretch 
of desolation and of wild sublimity. 

It was necessary for me, on this part of the journey, 
to take sixteen bigarries, nearly half of whom were 
women, besides an extra yak to carry wood ; and for my 
own use I got a little dark Spiti mare, which looked 
nothing to speak of, but actually performed marvels. 
We also took with us a small flock of milch goats, which 
could pick up subsistence by the way, and one or two 
live sheep to be made into mutton on the journey. 
Starting, at six on the morning of the 25th August, with 
the thermometer at 42°, the first part of the journey 
gave no idea of the desolation which was soon to be 
encountered. The day was bright and delightful, and 
the air even purer and more exhilarating than usual, as 
might be expected above 13,000 feet. A it"^ miles be- 
yond Loisar we came to the end of the. Lee or Spiti 
river, which I had now followed up from its confluence 
with the' Sutlej, through one of the wildest and most 
singular valleys in the world. Its whole course is 145 
miles ; but such figures give no idea of the time and 
immense toil which are required in order to follow it upj 
that short course, in which it has a fall of about 6000 
feet. It has an extraordinary end, which has already 
been described, and also a curious commencement ; for 
it begins, so to speak, at once, in a broad white bed of 
sand and stones, being there created by the junction of 
two short and (when I saw them) insignificant streams, 
of about equal size and length ; the Lichu, which comes 
from the Kanzam Pass, and the Pitu, which has its rise 
in the 20,000 snowy peak Kiii, Earlier in the season, 
however, just after mid-day, when the snows and 
glaciers are in full melting order, there must be a mag- 



2o6 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

nificent body of water in this upper portion of the Lee, 
raging and foaming along from bank to brae. 

Turning south-west, up the Li'chu river, we found a 
beautiful valley, full of small willow-trees and bright 
green grass, though it could have been very little less 
than 14,000 feet high. It was the most European-look- 
ing valley I saw among the Himaliya before reaching 
Kashmir; and it was followed by easy grassy slopes, 
variegated by sunshine and the shade of passing clouds, 
which slopes led up to the extreme summit of the 
Kanzam or Kanzal Pass, a height of 14,937 feet Here 
there was a very imposing view in front, of immense 
glaciers and snowy peaks, over or about 20,000 feet 
high, which rose up not far from perpendicularly, on the 
other side of the youthful Chandra river, which raged 
down far beneath our feet, in a manner which made it 
no wonder that the Kokser people were unwilling to 
encounter its turbid current. These mountains are the 
L peaks of the Topographical Survey ; three of them 
had some resemblance to the Matterhorn, though with 
more snow, and they rose abruptly from the Chandra, so 
as in the pure air to appear almost within a stone's-throw 
of the place on which we stood. Great overhanging beds 
of iieve fed enormous glaciers, which stretched down to 
the river like buttresses of the three nearest peaks. To 
an unpractised eye, it might have seemed as if the 
glaciers extended only half-way to the Chandra, because 
the lower portions of them were not only thickly covered 
with debris of rock, but in some places this debris bore 
living grass. This is a striking phenomenon, which 
occurs on the Himaliyan glaciers ; but I shall return to 
the subject directly, when I get upon the great glaciers 
of the Shigri valley. 

There was a steep descent from the top of the 
Kanzam Pass to the Chandra river, which we followed 



SHIGRI AND ITS GLACIERS. 207 

down a short way until a camping-ground was found 
about the height of 14,000 feet, beside a sort of pond 
formed by a back-flow of a tributary of the Chandra. 
Looking down the valley, immense glaciers were seen 
flowing down the clefts in the high mural precipices on 
both sides of the Chandra, and extending from the great 
beds of snow above, down to, and even into the river. 
This was the Abode of Snow, and no mistake ; for 
nothing else but snow, glaciers, and rocks were to be 
seen, and the great ice-serpents crept over into this 
dread valley as if they were living monsters. In the 
local dialect Shigri means a glacier ; but the word is 
applied to the upper Chandra valley ; so that the Shigri 
valley may be called, both literally and linguistically, 
the "Valley of Glaciers." But the collection of glaciers 
between the Chandra and Bhaga rivers, large though 
it be, is really insignificant compared to the enor- 
mous congeries of them to be found on the southern 
side of Zanskar. There was no sward here of -an}- 
description ; and I began to realise the force of the 
Afghan proverb, " When the wood of Jugduluk burns 
you begin to melt gold." Of this Shigri valley, in 
which we spent the next four days, it may well be 
said that — 

" Bare is it, without house or track, and destitute 
Of obvious slielter as a sliipless sea." 

That, however, is by no means the worst of it ; and 
in the course of the afternoon a fierce storm of wind, 
rain, and snow added to the savagery of the scene. As 
I had noticed from the top of the pass, some of the 
clouds of the monsoon seemed to have been forced 
over the two ranges of lofty mountains between us 
and the Indian plains ; and soon the storm-clouds 
began to roll grandly among the snowy peaks which 



2o8 THE ABODE OF SNO IV. 

rose. c]ose above us on every side. That spectacle 
was glorious ; but it was not so pleasant when the 
clouds suddenly descended upon us, hiding the peaks, 
and discharging themselves in heavy rain where we 
were, but in snow a few hundred feet above. There 
was a storm-wind, which came — 

" Like Auster whirling to and fro. 

His force on Caspian foam to try; 
Or Boreas, when he scours the snow 
That skims the plains of Thessaly." 

The thermometer sank at once to 41° from about 65"; 
and during the night it got down to freezing-point 
within my tent. Before night the clouds lifted, show- 
ing new-fallen snow all round us. In the twilight 
everything looked white, and assumed a ghastly 
appearance. The pond was white, and so were the 
stones around it, the foaming river, and the chalky 
ground on which our tents were pitched. The sides 
of the mountains were white with pure new-fallen 
snow; the overhanging glaciers were partly covered 
with it ; the snowy peaks were white, and so were 
the clouds, faintly illuminated by the setting sun, 
veiled with white mist. After dark, the clouds 
cleared away entirely, and, clearly seen in the bril- 
liant starlight — 

" Above the spectral glaciers shone" 

beneath the icy peaks ; while, above all, the hosts of 
heaven gleamed with exceeding brightness in the high 
pure air. The long shining cloud of the Milky Way 
slanted across the white valley ; Vega, my star, was 
past its zenith; and the Tsaat Rishi — the seven 
prophets of the Hindus, or the seven stars of our 
Great Bear — were sinking behind the mountains. 
We had some difficulty in getting off by six next 



SHIGRI AND ITS GLACIERS. 209 

morning-, when the thermometer was at 36°, and every 
one was suffering from, the cold. Unfortunately, too, 
we had to ford several icy-cold streams shortly after 
leaving camp, for they would have been unfordable 
farther on in the day. There are no bridges on this 
wild route; and I could not help pitying the poor 
women who, on this cold morning, had to wade 
shivering through the streams, with the rapid water 
dashing up almost to their waists. Still, on every 
side there were 20,000-feet snowy peaks and over- 
hanging glaciers, while great beds of snow curled 
over the tops of the mural precipices. After a few 
miles the Chandra ceased to run from north to south, 
and turned so as to flow from east to west ; but there 
was no change in the sublime and terrific character 
of the scenery. Out of the enormous beds of snow 
above, w>henever there is an opening for them — 

" The glaciers creep 
Like snakes that watch their prey ; from their far fount^ns 
Slowly rolling on ; there many a precipice, 
Frost, and the sun, in scorn of mortal power, 
Have piled — dome, ])yramid, and pinnacle— 
A city of death, distinct with many a tower, 
And wall impregnable of beaming ice. 
Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin 
Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky 
Rolls its perpetual stream." 

We were soon doomed to make a closer acquaintance 
with some of these enormous glaciers. Ere long we 
caine to one which stretched down all the way into the 
river, so there was no flanking it. At first it looked 
as if we were painfully crossing the huge ridges of a 
fallen mountain ; but this soon proved to be an im- 
mense glacier, very thickly covered over with slabs 
of clay-slate, and with large blocks of granite and 
gneiss, but with the solid ice underneath exposed here 

o 



2IO THE ABODE GF SNOW. 

and there, and especially in the surfaces of the large 
crevasses, which went down to unknown depths. This 
glacier, as also others which followed, was a frightfully 
fatiguing and exasperating thing to cross, and occu- 
pied us nearly three hours, our guides being rather at 
a loss in finding a way over, I should have been 
the whole day upon it, but for the astounding per- 
formances of my little Spiti mare, which now showed 
how wise had been the selection of it for this difficult 
journey. Never had I before fully realised the goat- 
Fike agility of these animals, and I almost despair of 
making her achievements credible. She sprang from 
block to block of granite, even with my weight upon 
her, like an ibex. No one who had not seen the per- 
formance of a Spiti pony could have believed it possible 
for any animal of the kind to go over the ground at all, 
and much less with a rider upon it. But this mare went 
steadily with me up and down the ridges, over the great 
rough blocks of granite and the treacherous slabs of 
slate. I had to dismount and walk, or rather climb a 
little, onl}/ three or four times, and that not so much 
from necessity as from pity for the little creature, which 
was trembling in every limb from the great leaps and 
other exertions which she had to make. On these occa- 
sions she required no one to lead her, but followed us 
like a dog, and was obedient to the voice of her owner. 
Shortly before coming to the glacier, I thought she was 
going over a precipice with me, owing to her losing her 
footing on coming down some high steps ; but she saved 
herself by falling on her knees and then making a mar- 
vellous side-spring. On the glacier, also, though she 
sometimes lost her footing, yet she always managed to 
recover it immediately in some extraordinary way. Her 
great exertions there did not require any goad, and 
..arose from her own spirit and eager determination to 



SHIGRI AND ITS GLACIERS. 



overcome the obstacles which presented themselves, 
though in ordinary circumstances she was perfectly- 
placid, and content to jog along as slowly as might be. 
Even when I was on this mare, she would poise herself 
on the top of a block of granite, with her four feet close 
together after the manner of a goat, and she leaped 
across crevasses of unknown depth after having to go 
down a slippery slope on one side, and when, on the 
other, she had nothing to jump upon except steeply- 
inclined blocks of stone. The two Loisar yaks also, 
magnificent black creatures with enormous white tails, 
did wonders ; but their indignant grunting was some- 
thing to hear. They had to be goaded a good deal, 
and were not so surprising as the slender-legged Spiti 
mare. Of course the latter had no shoes ; and it is not 
usual to shoe the horses of the Himali}-a, though they do 
so sometimes in Kashmir; and in Wukhan, to the north 
of the Oxus, there is the curious compromise of shoeing 
them with deer's horn, which protects the hoofs, while 
presenting a surface less slippery than iron, and one 
more congenial to the horse's tender foot. There was 
something affecting in the interest which this mare and 
some of the other mountain ponies I had elsewhere 
took in surmounting difficulties, and not less so in the 
eagerness, at stiff places, of the foals which often accom- 
panied us without carrying any burden. Thus in early 
youth they get accustomed to mountain journeys and to 
the strenuous exertions which these involve. At the 
same time, the Himaliyan ponies husband their breath 
very carefully in going up long ascents, and no urging 
on these occasions will force them to go faster than they 
think right, or prevent them from stopping every now 
and then just as long as they think proper. These are 
matters which must be left entirely to the ponies them- 
selves, and they do not abuse the liberty which they 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



claim. More tr3-ing is their fondness for trotting or am- 
bling down the steepest ascents on which they can at all 
preserve their footing ; and they show considerable im- 
patience when restrained from doing so, and have expres- 
sive ways of their own of saying to their rider, "Why 
don't you trust me, and let me go down at my own pace ? 
I shall take you quite safely." This ambling down 
a precipitous mountain-side is particularly unpleasant 
when the path is a corkscrew one, with many and sharp 
turnings, because when the pony rushes down at a turn- 
ing, it seems as if its impetus must carry it on and over j 
but at the last moment it manages to twist itself round, 
so that it can proceed in another direction ; and I think 
these intelligent little creatures take a pride in making 
as narrow a shave of the precipice as possible, and in 
making their riders feel as uncomfortable as they can. 
They are also great in wriggling you round delicate 
points of rock, where the loss of half an inch would send 
both horse and rider into the abyss. They do positively 
enjoy these ticklish places ; and the more ticklish the 
place, and the deeper the precipice below, the more do 
they enjoy it, and the more preternaturally sagacious do 
they become. They sniff at such a place with delight ; 
get their head and neck round the turning; experiment 
carefully to feel that the pressure of your knee against 
the rock will not throw the whole concern off its balance, 
and then they wriggle their bodies round triumphantly, 
I speak in this way, however, only of the best ponies 
of Spiti and Zanskar, and not of those of Lahaul, or of 
any of the lower Himali)'an provinces, which are much 
inferior. 

While stopping for breakfast on this great glacier, the 
ice beneath the stones on which we were gave a great 
crack, and the stones themselves sank a little way. This 
caused a general removal, and it looked as if we had 



SHICRI AND ITS GLACIERS. 213 

seated ourselves for breakfast over a crevasse (not a wise 
thing to do), the mouth of which had been blocked up 
with stones. To do Silas and Nurdass justice, they 
stuck by the breakfast-things, and removed these also; 
but that was, perhaps, because they did not understand 
the danger we were in. The place had been selected 
because of its affording shelter from the wind ; but when, 
after the crack occurred, I examined it closely, I saw 
quite clearly that we had been sitting between the lips 
of a crevasse which had got blocked up with rocks, and 
that the place was eminently an unsafe one. Our Loisar 
bigarries had a story about the rocks on this glacier 
having been owing to the fall of a mountain-peak which 
had formerly existed in the immediate neighbourhood. 
Very possibly there may have been a land-slip of the 
kind ; but the coolies varied in their legend about the 
fall of the peak, some saying that it occurred two gene- 
rations, and others twelve years ago. When questioned 
on the subject, they acknowledged that the glacier must 
move, because every summer they had to find a new 
path across it, and had to erect fresh marks in order to 
indicate the way. There are so many crumbling peaks 
and precipices about the great fountains of this glacier, 
that there is no absolute need for the theory or legend of 
the Loisar people to explain its covered condition. This 
glacier clearly arose from a number of large glaciers 
meeting in a great valley above, filling that up, and then 
pushing themselves over its rim in one great ice-stream 
down to the river ; and the crumbling precipices and 
peaks around were quite sufficient to supply the rocks 
we saw below. So compact had the covering got, that 
in some places I observed grass and flowers growing on 
this glacier. Coleridge has sung of the " living flowers 
that skirt the eternal frost," but here the flowers were 
blooming on the eternal frost itself. 



214 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

Occasionally, I think, a living flower is found on 
Swiss glaciers, but very rarely — whereas on the 
Himaliyan, flowers are by no means uncommon ; and 
the circumstance is easily accounted for by the greater 
power of the sun in the Himaliyan regions, and also 
by the fact, that when the glaciers get down a certain 
distance, they are so thickly covered by shattered rocks 
that they have to work their wa\% as it were, under- 
ground. In Switzerland, one often sees the great 
ploughshare of a glacier coming down into a green 
valley and throwing up the turf before it ; but usually 
among the Himaliya, long before the glacier reaches 
any green valley, it is literally overwhelmed and buried 
beneath the shattered fragments of rock from the 
gigantic precipices and peaks around. This slackens, 
without altogether arresting, its progress ; so that in 
many places the debris is allowed sufficient rest to 
permit of the growth of grass and flowers. It struck 
me that in some places there were even what might be 
called subterranean glaciers ; that is to say, that the 
fallen debris had so fallen together and solidified, that 
the ice-stream worked below it without disturbing the 
solidified surface. 

And here, as I am well acquainted with the Alps, it 
may not be amiss for me to compare the Himaliya with 
these European mountains, which are so well known to 
the English public. The Himdliya, as a whole, are not 
so richly apparelled as the Alps. In Kashmir, and some 
parts of the Sntlej valley, and of the valleys on their 
Indian front, they are rich in the most glorious vegeta- 
tion, and present, in that respect, a more picturesque 
appearance than any parts of Switzerland can boast 
of; but one may travel among the great ranges of the 
Asiatic mountains for weeks, and even months, through, 
the most sterile scenes, without coming on any of these 



SHIGRI AND ITS GLACIERS. 215 

regions of beauty. There is not here the same close union 
of beauty and grandeur, lovehness and sublimity, which 
is everywhere to be found over the Alps. There is a 
terrible want of level ground and of green meadows 
enclosed by trees. Except in Kashmir, and about the 
east of Ladak, there are no lakes. We miss much those 
Swiss and Italian expanses of deep blue water, in which 
white towns and villages, snowy peaks and dark moun- 
tains, are so beautifully mirrored. There is also a great 
want of perennial waterfalls, of great height and beauty, 
such as the Staubbach ; though in summer, during the 
heat of the day, the Himaliya in several places present 
long graceful streaks of dust-foam. 

The striking contrasts and the more wonderful scenes 
are not crowded together as they are in Switzerland. 
Both eye and mind are apt to be wearied among the 
Himali}'a by the unbroken repetition of similar scenes 
during continuous and arduous travel, extending over 
days and weeks together ; and one sorely misses 
Goethe's Eksc/icn, or the beautiful little corners of nature 
which satisfy the eye and mind alike. The picture 
is not sufficiently filled up in its detail, and the con- 
tinuous repetition of the vast outlines is apt to become 
oppressive. The very immensity of the Himaliya pre- 
vents us from often beholding at a glance, as among the 
Alps, the wonderful contrast of green meadows, darker 
pines, green splintered glaciers, dark precipitous cliffs, 
blue distant -hills, white slopes of snow and glittering icy 
summits. There are points in the Sutlej valley and in 
Kashmir where something like this is presented, and in 
a more overpowering manner than anywhere in Europe; 
but months of difficult travel separate these two regions," 
and their beauty cannot be said to characterise the 
Himaliya generally. But what, even in Switzerland, 
would be great mountains, are here dwarfed into insi^r- 



2i6 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

nificant hills ; and it requires some time for the eye to 
understand the immense Himaliyan heights and depths. 
Some great rock, or the foot of some precipice, which is 
pointed out as our camping-place for the night, looks at 
first as if it were only a few hundred feet off, but after 
hours of arduous ascent, it seems almost as far off as ever. 

The human element of the Western mountains is 
greatly wanting in those of the East ; for though here 
and there a ■monastery like Ki, or a village like Dan- 
kar, may stand out picturesquely on the top of a hill, 
yet, for the most part, the dingy-coloured, flat-roofed 
Himaliyan hamlets are not easily distinguishable from 
the rocks amid which they stand. The scattered cJidlets 
and sen huts of Switzerland are wholly wanting ; and 
the European traveller misses the sometimes bright and 
comely faces of the peasantry of the Alps. I need 
scarcely say, also, that the more wonderful scenes of the 
Abode of Snow are far from being easily accessible, even 
when we are in the heart of the great mountains. And 
it can hardly be said that the cloudland of the Hima- 
liya is so varied and gorgeous as that of the mountains 
of Europe, though the sky is of a deeper blue, and the 
heavens are much more brilliant at night. 

But when all these admissions in favour of Switzer- 
land are made, the Himaliya still remain unsurpassed, 
and even unapproached, as regards ail the wilder and 
grander features of mountain scenery. There is no- 
thing in the Alps which can afford even a faint idea 
of the savage desolation and appalling sublimity of 
many of the Himaliyan scenes. Nowhere, also, have 
the faces of the mountains been so scarred and riven by 
the nightly action of frost and the mid-day floods from 
melting snow. In almost every valley we see places 
where whole peaks or sides of great mountains have 
very recently come shattering down; and the thoughtful 



SHIGRI AND ITS GLACIERS. 217 

traveller must feel that no power or knowledge he pos- 
sesses can secure him against such a catastrophe, or 
prevent his bones being buried, so that there would be 
little likelihood of their release until the solid earth dis- 
solves. And, though rare, there are sudden passages 
from these scenes of grandeur and savage desolation to 
almost tropical luxuriance, and more than tropical 
beauty of organic nature. Such changes are startling 
and delightful, as in the passage from Dras into the 
upper Sind valley of Kashmir ; while there is nothing 
finer in the world of vegetation than the great cedars, 
pines, and sycamores of many of the lower valleys. 

It is needless to look in the Himaliya for a population 
so energetic and interesting as the Swiss, the Vaudois, 
or the Tyrolese ; and these mountains have no women 
whose attractions at all approach those of the Italian 
side of the Alps from Lugano eastward, or of the valleys 
of the Engadine and the Tyrol. The Tibetan popula- 
tion is hardly abundant enough, or of sufficiently strong 
morale, for heroic or chivalric efforts, such as have been 
made by the ancient Greeks, the Swiss, the Waldenses, 
the Scotch Highlanders, and the mountaineers of some 
other parts of Europe, and even of Asia, There are tra- 
ditions enough among the Himaliya, but they usually 
relate either to the founding of monasteries, the destruc- 
tion of invaders like Zorawar Singh, whose forces had 
been previously dispersed by the troops of Lassa ; or the 
death of travelling parties in snowstorms, and from the 
avalanches of snow or rock. Nowhere, unless in the 
vast cloudy forms of Hindu mythology, do we meet 
with traditions of heroes or sages of whom it can be 
said, that 

" Their spirits wrapt the dusky mountain j 
Their mem'ry sparkled o'er the fountain j 
The meanest lill, the mightiest river. 
Rolled mingling with their fame for ever." 



2 1 8' THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

How easily Kashmir, with a European population, 
night have guarded its passes and preserved its inde- 
pendence ! but it has scarcely ever made any attempt to 
do so; and the people of Tibet have not shown much 
more heroism, though they have had abundant experi- 
ence of fighting. The introduction of Budhism into this 
elevated country was no doubt accomplished only by 
means of much self-sacrifice on the part of its early 
missionaries ; but the shadowy forms of that, age are 
most indistinctly seen, and have little attraction for the 
modern European. There is much of interest, how- 
ever, in Lamaism and in the very peculiar customs of 
the Tibetan race ; and I found it impossible to move 
among these people, especially in the more primitive 
parts of the country, without contracting a great liking 
for them, and admiration for their honesty, their patience, 
and their placidity of temper, in circumstances which 
must be trying for these virtues. 

The Alps extend only for about 600 miles, counting 
their extreme length from Hungary to the Mediter- 
ranean, and their lateral extent is very narrow; but the 
Himaliya proper are at least 1 500 miles in length. They 
are a great deal more if we add to them the Hindu Kush, 
which really constitute only a continuation of the range, 
and their breadth is so great that at some points it is 
more than half the entire length of the Alps. If, as 
Royle remarks, we consider the Hindu Kiish to be a 
continuation, not so much of the Kuen-lung, as of the 
Himaliya, then these latter extend from the equator (by 
their branches into the Malay Peninsula) to 45 degrees 
of north latitude, and over 73 degrees of longitude. 
That is a gigantic space of the earth's surface, and 
affords a splendid base for the giant peaks which rise up 
to almost 30,000 feet; but, as I have already hinted, 
there is even more meaning tluin this, and more pro- 



SHIGRI AND ITS GLACIERS. 219 

prlety than the Arabs themselves understood, in their 
phrase, "The Stony Girdle of the Earth," because this 
great central range can easily be traced from the moun- 
tains of Formosa in the China Sea to the Pyrenees, 
where they sink into the Mediterranean. This fact has 
not escaped the notice of geographers ; and Dr Mackay 
especially has drawn attention to it in his admirable 
" Manual of Modern Geography," though he has not 
known the expressive phrase of his Arab predecessors. 
The Western Himaliya are a series of nearly parallel 
ranges lying from south-east to north-west. They are 
properly the Central Himaliya; the Hindu Kush are 
the Western ; and what are now called the Central Him- 
aliya are the Eastern. These are the most obvious great 
natural divisions i^bufe'additional confusion is caused by 
the Inner Himali\a, or the interior ranges, being also 
sometimes spoken of as the Central. It' is more usual, 
however, to take the Pamir Steppe as a centre, and to 
speak of the western range as a boundary wall to the 
high tableland of Western Asia, separating the waters 
of the Arabian Gulf from those of the Caspian, the Black 
Sea, and the Aral. That portion consists of the Hindu 
Kush, the Parapomisan mountains, the Elburz, the Zag- 
ros of Kurdistan, Ararat and the Armenian mountains, 
the Taurus and Anti-Taurus; and these are continued 
through Europe in the mountains of Greece and Euro- 
pean Turkey, the Alps, the Cevennes, and the Pyrenees. 
The south-eastern range runs from the Pamir to the 
China Sea in the Himaliya, and in the branches from 
it which go down into the Malay Peninsula and Annam. 
The eastern range goes nearly due east from the Pamir 
to the Pacific in the Kuen-lung, and in the Pe-ling, 
which separate the Yang-tsze from the Yellow River. 
There is also a north-east range, which runs from the 
Pamir to Behring's Strait, including the Tengu Tagh, 



220 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

and several ranges in Siberia and Kamtchatka. But the 
Himaliya proper, with which we are concerned, may be 
said to be enclosed by the Indus, the Brahmaputra, and 
the great northern plain of India. That is a very simple 
and intelligible boundary line ; for the two rivers rise 
close together in, or in the near neighbourhood of, Lake 
Mansorawar. In the first part of their course they flow 
close behind the great ranges of the Himaliya, and 
they cut through the mountains at points where 
there is some reason for considering that new ranges 
commence. 

In adopting "The Abode of Snow" as the title of 
this work, I only give the literal meaning of the word 
Himaliya, which is a Sanscrit word, and is to be found 
in most of the languages of India. It is a compound 
word, composed of hima snow or winter, and aliya or 
aldya, an abode or place. Its component parts are 
thus Hima-aliya I and as the double a is contracted 
into one, even the infant philologist of modern times will 
perceive the erroneousness of our ordinary English way 
of pronouncing the word as "Himalaya."* The San- 
scrit word Jiima is also sometimes used to signify the 
moon and a pearl ; but even thus a portion of its ori- 

* We are not quite so bad as the French in this respect ; but, as a gene- 
ral rule, the infant philologist (and all infants are in a fair way of being 
philologists nowadays) will find it pretty safe always to reverse the accents 
which he finds Euglislimen putting upon foreign names. Even such a 
simple and obvious word as Bn'ndisi we must turn into Brindfsi ; and it 
is still worse wlieii we come to give names of our own to localities. What 
a descent from "The Abode of Snow" to "The Hills" of the Anglo- 
Indians, even when the latter phrase may come from a rosebud mouth ! 
But that is not so striking an example of our national taste as one which 
has occurred in Jamaica, wliere a valley which used to be called by the 
Spaniards the " Bocaguas," or "Mouth of the Wa.ters," has been trans- 
muted by us into "Bog Walks." A still more curious transmutation, 
tlioughofa reverse oider, occurred in Hong-Koiig, in the early days of 
that so-called colony. There was a street there much frequented by sailors, 



SHIGRI AND ITS GLACIERS. 221 

ginal meaning is denoted. No doubt this hima is closely 
cognate with the Latin Jiiems and Jiibcrnus, for himer- 
mus ; with the Greek ^tcoy {^e'cfxa), the Persico-Zend ;sim 
and sz7na, and the Slavonic ^•zV??^, a word used for winter. 
As the great Abode of the Gods is held by the Hindus 
to be in the Himaliya, and the word Himaliya itself is 
used by them in that sense, it is obvious that Himmel, 
the German word for heaven, comes from the same 
source ; and it is the only instance I know of in Euro- 
pean languages which takes in both compounds. This 
must surely have occurred to the lexicographers, but I 
have not noticed any reference to it. It also occurs to 
me that the word " Imaus," which Milton uses in the 
third book of " Paradise Lost," and which he took from 
Pliny, may very likely be from himas, another Sanscrit 
form used for winter and for the Himaliya. In Hindu 
mythology, these mountains are personified as the hus- 
band of Manaka. He was also the father of Durga, the 
great goddess of destruction, who became incarnate as 
Parvati, or the " daughter of the mountain," in order to 
captivate Siva and withdraw him from a penance which 
he had undertaken to perform in the Himaliya. It is, 
then, with the god of destruction, and his no less terrible 
spouse, that the Himaliya are more specially associated, 
rather than with the brighter form of Vishnu, the Pre- 
server ; but the whole Hindu pantheon are also regarded 
as dwelling among the inaccessible snowy peaks of these 
inaccessible moimtains. Neither Cretan Ida nor Thes- 
salian Olympus can boast of such a company ; and. 



in which Chinese damsels used to sit at the windows and greet the passers- 
by with the invitation, " Come 'long, Jack ; " consequently the street be- 
came known by the name of the " Come 'long Street," which in the 
Chine-e mouth was Kti?n Ltlng, or " The Golden Dragon." So, when the 
streets were named and placarded, " Come along Street " appeared, both 
in Chinese and English, as the Street of the Gulden Dragon. 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



looking up to the snows of the Kailas, it may well be 
said that — 

^ '^Every legend fair, 

Which the supreme Caucasian mind 
Carved out of Nature for itself, is there." 

Being a botindary wall to the Tibetan and other ele- 
vated plains of Central Asia, the Himaliya are usually 
steep towards the Indian side, and more gradual towards 
the north, the strata dipping to the north-east ; but this 
rule has many exceptions, as in the case of the Kailas 
and the lofty mountains forming the southern boundary 
of the Shigri valley. There the fall is as abrupt as it 
could well be towards the north, and the 23,ooofeet 
Akun peaks in Suru seem to stand up like needles. The 
statement, frequently made, that there is more soil and 
more springs on the northern than on the southern side, 
applies specially only to that portion of the exterior 
range which runs from the Narkanda Ghaut up to the 
Kailas. The line of perpetual snow is very high in the 
Himaliya, and its height detracts somewhat from their 
grandeur in July and August, though that increases 
their savage appearance. In the western ranges it goes 
up so high as 18,500 on their southern, and 19,000 feet 
on their northern faces ; but this only means that we 
find exposed surfaces of rock at these heights, and must 
not be taken as a literal rule. Where snow can lodge, 
it is rare to find bare tracts above 16,000 feet at any 
period of the year; and even in August a snowstorm 
may cover everything down to 12.000 feet, or even 
lower. There are great beds of snow and glaciers which 
remain unremoved during the summer far below i8,00O 
feet. In the Swiss Alps the line of perpetual snow is 
8900 feet ; so there is the enormous difference on this 
point of lo.oco feet between the two mountain ranges; 
and so it may be conceived how intense must be the 



SHIGRI AND ITS GLACIERS. 



223 



heat in summer of the deeper valleys of the Himaliya . 
but in winter the snow comes down in the latter moun- 
tains to 3000 feet, or lower occasionally; so that there 
may be a range of 26,000 feet of snow, instead of 14,000 
as among- the Alps. 

The arrest of the clouds of the Indian south-east mon- 
soon on the outer range of the Himaliya combines, with 
other causes, to create an extraordinary dr\-ness of atmo- 
sphere, and this aridit}^ increases on the steppes be}'ond. 
Hence, even when the temperature may be very low, 
there is often very little snow to be deposited, and the 
accumulations on the high mountains have been the 
work of ages. It has often been observed, in polar and 
mountainous regions, how great is the power of solar 
rays passing through highly rarefied air; and upon the 
great heights of the Himaliya, the effect of these rays is 
something terrible. When they are reflected from new- 
fallen snow, their power is so intense, that I have seen 
them raise my thermometer (when placed at a particular 
angle against a great sheet of sun-lit snow, and exposed 
at the same time to the direct rays of the sun) from a 
little above freezing-point, which was the temperature 
of the air, to 192° Fahrenheit, or between the points at 
which spirits boil and water boils at the level of the sea. 
It is remarkable that in spite of this, and though snow- 
blindness is often the result, yet no cases of sunstroke 
appear to occur in the Himaliya, and supports the theory 
that sunstroke partakes more of the character of heat- 
apoplexy than of mere injury to the head in the first 
instance. The difference of temperature between the 
days and nights is not such as might be expected from 
the extremely rapid radiation of heat there is at, high 
altitudes. The change arising from that cause would be 
almost killing were it not for the fortunate fact that the 
atmosphere forced up by the warmth of the day descends 



224 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

at night, and, being condensed, gives out heat. The 
cold of the Himaliya has been known suddenly to kill 
people when they were exposed to sudden gusts of wind, 
though they could safely have borne a much lower tem- 
perature in still air. The wind is certainly the great 
drawback both to health and comfort amon^ these c^reat 
mountains; but, as we have seen, it has its advantage, 
being caused by the elevation of heated air from below, 
which afterwards descending and contracting, renders 
the nights endurable. I understand that the monks of 
St Bernard, who go up to that monastery at eighteen 
years of age, vowed to remain there for fifteen years, 
only in rare instances are able to remain so long, and 
that does not say much for high mountain air ; but it 
may be the seclusion of their life up there, and other 
defects in it, which makes that life so injurious to them. 
If any one would allow me a thousand a year on condi- 
tion that I always keep above 12,000 feet, I should be 
happy to make the experiment, and to write a warm 
obituary notice of my benefactor when he dies below. 

But to return to the Shigri valley : my second camp- 
ing-place there was destitute of wood, but it was very 
grassy and sheltered. The biganHes had the advantage 
of an immense stone under which there were small hol- 
lows for them to sleep in; and there was good water 
accessible, wliich is often a difficult)^ ; because though 
there may be " water, water everywhere" about in those 
regions, both in a solid and a liquid shape, it does not 
necessarily follow that it can be easily got at ; for you 
may have to descend a precipice of a thousand feet in 
order to get at the river, or to ascend as high to reach 
the glacier, which ceases to give out streams towards 
evening. At three r.M., the thermometer was so low as 
40°, though during the day there had been a blazing 
sun and no clouds. From this spot, on the third day, 



SHIGRI AND ITS GLACIERS. 225 

the road was literally frightful, not so much in the sense 
of being dangerous as exasperating. It chiefly went 
over great stones with scarcely the affectation even of 
a track. Sometimes it followed the bed of the Chan- 
dra, anon ascended the steep stony or precipitous banks 
of that river, and wound along the edge of precipices on 
paths fit only for deer or goats. We had to ford quite 
a number of cold streams, which did not fail to evoke 
plaintive cries from the women, and crossed at the foot 
of several glaciers, which did not appear to descend 
quite to the river, but very possibly did so, because I 
had neither time nor patience for close examination, and 
the shattered debris I several times crossed mighf well 
have had ice beneath. It was necessary to dismount 
and scramble on foot every now and then ; and nine 
continuous hours of this sort of thing were too much for 
an invalid. The Spiti pony could be trusted almost 
implicitly; but many of the ascents were too much for 
it with a rider. Riding among the great stones endan- 
gered one's knees, and, on some of the high paths, there 
was not room for it to pass with a rider. And if the 
pony could be trusted, not so could its saddle, which 
very nearly brought us both to grief. We came to some 
high steps — that is to say, large stones lying so as to 
make natural steps, each about two and a half or three 
feet high — leading down upon a narrow rock ledge, 
which ran (above a precipice) slightly turned inwards 
from the line of descent. It was madness to ride down 
here; but I had been so worried by the fatigue of the 
road, and by constant mounting and dismounting, that 
I preferred doing so, and the pony quite justified my 
confidence. But at the most critical moment, when it 
stepped with both feet from the last stone on to the 
ledge, when I was leaning back to the very utmost, and 
everything was at the highest strain, then, just as its 

p 



226 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

feet struck the rock, the crupper gave way, and the 
saddle slipped forward on the pony's neck, throwing us 
both off our balance. We must have both gone over 
hundreds of feet had not a preservative instinct enabled 
me to throw myself off the saddle upon the ledge of 
rock. This movement, of course, was calculated to send 
the pony outwards, and all the more surely overboard ; 
but in falling I caught hold of its mane, pulled it down 
on the top of me, and held it there until some of the 
bigari'ies came to our release. A short time elapsed 
before they did so, and the little pony seemed quite to 
understand, and acquiesce in, the necessity of remaining 
s:ill. I was riding alone at the time of the accident, 
and, had we gone over, should probably not have been 
missed at the time, or found afterwards. Nor can. I 
exactly say that it was I myself who saved us both, be- 
cause there was not an instant's time for thought in the 
matter. All I know is, that it was done, and that I was 
a good deal bruised and stiffened by the fall. I had to 
lie down, quite exhausted and sore, whenever I reached 
our third day's camping-ground, which was a very ex- 
posed, dusty, and disagreeable one. 

Next morning I did not start till eight, and ordered 
all the bigarries to keep behind me, as I was afraid of 
their pushing on to Kokser, a distance which would have 
been too much for me. The road in many places was 
near!}' as bad as that of the previous day, and there were 
dangerous descents into deep ravines; but in part it 
was very pleasant, running high above the river over 
rounded hills covered with flowery grass. The way was 
also enlivened by flocks of sheep, some laden with salt, 
and by very civil shepherds from Kulu and Bussahir. 
The usual camping-ground was occupied by large flocks, 
and, for the sake of shelter, I had to camp close above 
a precipice. Here I purchased from the Kulu shepherds 



SHIGRI AND ITS GLACIERS. 227 

a wonderful young dog called Djeola, a name which, 
with my Indian servants and the public in general, very 
soon got corrupted into Julia. This animal did not 
promise at first to be any acquisition. Though only 
five or six months old, it became perfectly furious on 
being handed over to me and tied up. I fastened it to 
my tent-pole, the consequence of which was that it tore 
the drill, nearly pulled the tent down, hanged itself 
until it was insensible, and I only got sleep after some- 
how it managed to escape. I recovered it, however, 
next morning ; and after a few days it became quite 
accustomed to me and affectionate. Djeola was a 
source of constant amusement. I never knew a dog 
in which there was so fresh a spring of strong simple 
life. But the curious thing is, that it had all the appear- 
ance of a Scotch collie, though considerably larger than 
any of these animals. Take a black-and-tan collie, 
double its size, and you have very much what "Julia" 
became after he had been a few months in my posses- 
sion, for when I got him he was only five or six month.s 
old. The only differences were that the tail was thicker 
and more bushy, the jaw more powerful, and he had 
large dew claws upon his hind feet. Black dogs of this 
kind are called siissa by the Tibetans, and the red 
species, of which I had a friend at Pu, are micstang. The 
wild dog is said to go up to the snow-line in the 
Himaliya, and to hunt in packs ; but I never saw or 
heard of any, and I suspect their habitat is only the 
Indian side of the Himaliya. Such packs of dogs 
undoubtedly exist on the Western Ghauts of India, 
and they are not afraid of attacking the tiger, over- 
coming it piecemeal, while the enraged lord of the 
forest can only destroy a small number of his assail- 
ants; but very little is really known about them. An 
interesting field for the zoologist is still open in an 



228 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

examination of the vvild dog of Western India, the wild 
ass, yak, and horse of Tibet, and the wild camel, which 
is rumoured still to exist in the forests to the east 
of Yarkund, I mentioned this latter animal to Dr 
Stolicska, who had not heard of it, and thought that 
such camels would be only specimens of the domestic 
species which had got loose and established themselves, 
with their progeny, in the wilderness ;" but the subject is 
worthy of investigation from a scientific point of view ; 
and perhaps the Yarkund Mission may have brought 
back some information in regard to it. 

But though Djeola was most savage on being tied 
up and transferred to a new owner, there was nothing 
essentially savage, rude, brutish, or currish in its nature. 
Indeed it very soon reminded me of the admirable words 
of one of the most charming of English writers upon 
dogs : " Take an example of a Dog}-, and mark what 
generosity and courage he will put on when he is main- 
tained by a man who to him is instead of a god or 
Melior Natura." It not only became reconciled to 'me, 
but watched over me with an almost'Tudicrous fidelity, 
and never got entirely reconciled even to my servants. 
The striking my tent in the morning was an interference 
with its private property to which it strongly objected, 
and if not kept away at that time, it would attack the 
bigarries engaged. I also found, on getting to Kashmir, 
that it regarded all Sahibs as suspicious characters, to 
be laid hold of at once ; but, fortunately, it had a way 
of seizing them without doing much damage, as it would 
hold a sheep, and the men it did seize were good-natured 
sportsmen. It delighted in finding any boy among our 
bigarries that it could tyrannise over, but never really 
hurt him. It was very fond of biting the heels of yaks 
and horses, and then thinking itself ill-treated when 
they kicked. Its relations with Nako were also amus- 



SHIGRI AND ITS GLACIERS. 229 

ing. That old warrior had no jealousy of Djeola, and 
treated it usually with silent contempt, unless it drew 
near when he was feeding — a piece of temerity which 
the young dog soon learned the danger of. But Djeola 
would sometimes indulge in gamesome and affection- 
ate fits towards Nako, which the latter never invited, 
and barely tolerated, and which usually resulted in a 
short and sharp fight, in which Djeola got speedily 
vanquished, but took its punishment as a matter of 
course, and without either fear or anger. I had 
intended this Himdliyan giant sheep-dog for the 
admirable writer and genial sage, Dr John Brown, 
who has given us " Rab and his Friends," who. 
would have been able to do justice to its merits, 
and compare it with the sheep-dogs of Scotland, 
but could not arrange that conveniently, and left it 
with a friend at Puna. 

When in the Shigri valley, I kept a watch for any 
symptoms of gold, but did not notice any, and on 
other grounds should not think it likely that gold 
exists there in any quantity. But Mr Theodor, a 
German employed in carrying out the construction 
of the road over the Barra Lacha Pass, told me that 
he had found silver ore in this valley, I may men- 
tion that the first great glacier which I crossed has 
pushed its way into the Chandra, and threatens to 
close up that river in a very serious manner, as it 
once did before, which might lead to disasters in the 
valleys of the Chandra- Bhaga and of the Chenab, 
similar to those which occurred in the Drance and 
Upper Rhone valleys of Switzerland in 1595 and 
1 8 19. 



CHAPTER VIL 

ZANSKAK, 

I SHALL touchvery briefly indeed upon Lahaul, in order 
to pass almost at once into the more secluded and inte- 
resting province which affords the subject and the title 
of this chapter. Lahaul is pretty well known, being 
traversed every year 'SSy Himaliyan tourists on their way 
to Ladak. If we were to take it for a Hindusthani 
word (a subject on which I have no information), the 
proper translation of it would be "a howling wilder- 
ness ;" and that is exactly what Lahaul is in one respect 
important for travellers. As compared with other parts 
of the Himaliya, it is far from being a howling wilder- 
ness in any physical sense of these words, because it is 
comparatively rich in trees and fields, and among the 
inner Himaliya the valleys are much more open than in 
the outer, where it is too often impossible to see the 
mountains because of the mountains. After the scenery 
around, there is a delightful sense of relief in entering its 
more open valle3's and getting pretty full views of the 
great snowy ranges ; there is also comfort in travelling 
along a cut road, however narrow it may be : but these 
/ advantages are counterbalanced by the disposition of 
' the Lahaulese towards travellers, which is so bad that 
the tourist requires to be forewarned of it. There is, 
however, a great set-off to that in the presence of the 
Moravian missionaries, who at Kaelang have created an 
oasis amidst the squalor and wildness of this Himdlij^an 
province, and have done as much for its improvement as 



ZANSKAR. 



the difficult circumstances of their position would allow. 
A Yarkund merchant had complained bitterly to me of 
the exactions and other annoyances which he was ex- 
periencing in Lahaul; and this, conjoined with my own 
experience — which I found afterwards to be in accord- 
ance with that of other English travellers, some of high 
official position — induced me to inquire of the Moravians 
the cause of such a state of matters, which presents a 
serious obstacle to the development of trade between 
Yarkund and British India. One reason they assigned 
was, that the people of Lahaul were irritated at the 
making of the cut road, which allowed ponies and mules 
to traverse their province, and so deprived them, not 
merely of their rights of porterage, but also of certain 
vested rights of pilfering from packages, which they 
valued much more. Another reason assigned was the 
hostility of the Tscho, or larger zemindars ; but I 
believe the difficulty is intimately connected with the 
general position assumed by the British Government. 
It has been so successfully instilled into the minds of 
the people by the Tscho that the British rule will come 
to an end, that wliea the^ Moravians purchased some 
land at Kaelang a {^"^ years ago, the}^ could only obtain 
it on the condition being formally inserted in the title- 
deed, that it should revert to the original owners when- 
ever British rule came to an end in Lahaul. A fact like 
this hardly requires comment, and I may leave it to 
speak for itself I shall only mention further, in general 
connection with this province, that at Gandla, and still 
better, about half-way on the road to it from Sisu, mag- 
nificent avalanches of snow may be both heard and seen. 
On the opposite side of the Chandra river there rises, to 
the height of 20,356 feet, the extremely precipitous peak 
M of the Trigonometrical Survey ; and from the great 
beds of snow upon it, high above us, avalanches were 



THE ABODE OF SNOW, 



falling every five minutes, before and after mid-day, on 
to two long glaciers winch extended almost down to the 
river. As the bed of the Chandra is here under io,ooc? 
feet, the highest peak must have risen up almost sheer 
more than 10,000 feet, in tremendous precipices, hanging 
glaciers, and steep beds and walls of snow ; though on 
its north-western shoulder the ascent was more gradual, 
and was covered by scattered pines. Immediately in 
front the slope was terrific ; and, every few minutes, an 
enormous mass of snow gave way, and fell, flashi-ng in 
the sunlight, on steep rocks. A great crash was heard 
as these masses struck the rocks, and a continuous roar 
as they poured downwards, until they broke over a preci- 
pice above the glaciers, and then fell with a resemblance 
to great cataracts of white foaming water, and sending 
up clouds of snow-spray as they struck the ice. The 
volume of one of these avalanches must, so long as it 
lasts, be greater than that of any known cataract, though 
they descend thousands of feet, and their final thun- 
dering concussion is as the noise of many waters in the 
solitudes around. " They, too, have a voice, yon piles of 
snow;" and truly these are — 

" Sky-pointing peaks, 
Oft from whose feet the mighty avalanche 
Shoots downward, glittering througli the pure serene." 

From the junction of the Chandra and Bhaga rivers 
the pilgrim has the choice of several routes to Kashmir, 
but they are all of such a character that even Hopeful 
might be excused for contemplating them with some 
dismay. The easiest, undoubtedly, is that by Leh ; but 
it is much the longest and dreariest, involving thirty- 
seven marches to Srinagar, and an 18,000-feet pass, 
besides several more of lesser height. A shorter, and, on 
the whole, a much easier road, goes by way of Chamba 



ZANSKAR. 



and Badrawar ; but the difficulty is how to get into 
it, because (not to speak of a jln'da over the Chandra, 
which beats all the bridges I ever saw, and the mere 
sight of which makes the blood run cold) the best way 
into it is across the fearful Barra Bhagal Pass, over 
which beasts of burden cannot cross, and where there is 
a dangerous arret, which can only be passed with the 
aid of ropes. The usual route taken is that in twenty- 
seven marches, down the Chandra-Bhaga river to Kisht- 
war. But though that route has been improved of late 
years, there is one part of it which is impassable for 
mountain ponies, and it involves a descent to 5000 feet 
down a close warm valley. So I set to inquire whether 
my old idea of following the lie of the Mimalij'a, and 
always in its loftier valleys, could not be carried out 
on this part of my journey ; and was delighted to hear 
from Mr Heyde, the accomplished head of the Moravian 
Mjssiottp-that it was quife pas'sable ; that^he himself had 
traversed about the first half of the way, and that it 
led through Zanskar, a country of the very existence of 
which I was then as ignorant as my readers probably 
are now. Mr^Heyde was quite enthusiastic in praise of 
this route, and he even spoke of its leading over flowery 
inaidans or plains. I am bound to say, however, for the 
benefit of future travellers, that this was a delusion and 
a snare. Men who have lived for many years among the 
Himaliya come to have very peculiar ideas as to what 
constitutes a inaidan or plain. There were no diffi- 
culties on this route ? I inquired. Oh, there were none 
to speak of, except the Shinkal Pass, which led over into 
Zanskar. It was of unknown height; it required four 
days to cross it ; there were no villages or houses on the 
way, and the top of it was an immense glacier. He (Mr 
Heyde) had once crossed it in company with Brother. 
Pagell, and Brother Pagell had fainted whenever they 



234 THE ABODE OF SNO W. 

got ofif the glacier. But there had been snow on the 
ground, which was very fatiguing ; and at the end of the 
fourth day I would descend upon Kharjak, the first village 
in Zanskar, which I would find to be a nice hospitable 
place, about 14,000 feet high. Were there otlier passes .-' 
Well, there was the Pense-fa Pass, but that was nothing. 
A flowery maidan led up to it (my experience was that 
a glacier and six feet deep of snow led up to the top of 
it) ; but he did not know farther, and there might be 
places a little difficult to get over between Suru and 
Kashmir. I mention this to show how regular Hima- 
liyans look upon such matters ; for Mr Heyde was 
careful to warn me about the lateness of the season, to 
inquire into the state of my lungs and throat, and to 
give me all the information and assistance he could. It 
took me exactly twenty-eight marches and thirty-one 
days to reach Srinagar from Kaelang by this route, and 
it could not well be done in less ; but my difficulties 
were much increased by a great snowstorm which swept 
over the Himalij'a in the middle of September, and 
which need not be counted on so early in the season. 

The selection of this route nearly caused a mutiny 
among my servants, who had been promising themselves 
the warm valley of the Chandra-Bhaga. So unknown a 
country as Zanskar frightened them, and Silas unfor- 
tunatel}' heard of Mr Pagell's fainting fit, which almost 
made the e\'es start out of his own head, since he knew 
that gentleman's endurance as a mountaineer. The only 
doubt I had was about the weather, which began to look 
tlireatening ; but I finally resolved on this interesting 
route, and found good cause to congratulate myself on 
having done so. 

On the 3d September I took farewell of Brothers 
Heyde and Redslob, the Moravian missionaries, of their 
kind ladies, and of Mr Thcodor, who was suffering in- 



ZANSKAR. 235 



tensely from the exposure he had incurred in constructing 
the road to Leh over the Barra Lacha. It was cold and 
gloomy the day I left Kaelang. The clouds that hung- 
about the high mountains added to the impressiveness 
of the scene. Through their movements an icy peak 
would suddenly be revealed for a few moments ; then a 
rounded snowdome would appear, to be followed by 
some huge glacier, looking through the clouds as if it 
were suspended in the gloomy air. For two days we pur- 
sued the road to Leh — namely, to the village of Darchaf 
from which the path over the great Shinkal Pass into 
Zanskar diverges to the left, or north-west, up the valley 
of the Kado Tokpho river. This was the last human 
habitation before reaching Kharjak, four days' journey 
off; and though the most of my coolies had, by Mr 
Heyde's advice, been engaged at Kaelang to take me as 
far as Kharjak, their number had to be supplemented 
at Darcha. To secure that, a representative of British 
authority, a policeman. so called, had been sent with me 
to Darcha ; but the policeman soon came back to my 
tent in a bruised and bleeding condition, complaining 
that the people of the village had given him a beating 
for his interference ; and the men who did engage to go, 
tried to run away when we were well up the desolate 
pass, and gave me other serious trouble. The first day 
of our ascent was certainly far from agreeable. The 
route — for it would be absurd to speak of a path — ran 
up the left bank of the Kado Tokpho, and crossed some 
aggravating stone avalanches. My dandy could not be 
used at all, and I had often to dismount from the large 
pony I had got at Kaelang, Our first camping-ground 
was called Dakmachen, and seemed to be used for that 
purpose, but had no good water near. On great part of 
the next day's journey, granite avalanches were also a 
prominent and disgusting feature. Indeed, there are so 



236 THE ABODE OF SNOW, 

many of them in the Kado Tokpho valley, and they 
are so difficult and painful to cross, that I was almost 
tempted to wish that one would come down in my pre- 
sence, and let me see what it could do. They were very 
like Himaliyan glaciers, but had no ice beneath ; and an 
appalling- amount of immense peaks must have falle'n 
down into this hideous valley. An enterprising dhirzie 
or tailor, well acquainted with the route, was our guide, 
and the owner of my pony, and I could not help asking him 
if this were one of the maidans of which Mr Heyde had 
spoken ; but he said we should meet one presently, and 
found one wherever there was a narrow strip, of grassy 
land. At one place we had to work up the side of a sort 
of precipice, and met coming down there a naked Hindu 
Bawa, or religious devotee, who was crossing from 
Zanskar to Lahaul, accompanied by one attendant, and 
with nothing but his loin-cloth, a brass drinking-pot, and 
a little parched grain. He was a young man, and 
appeared strong and well-nourished. It was passing 
strange to find one of these ascetics in the heart of the 
Himaliya, far from the habitations of men ; and when I 
went on without giving him anything, he deliberately- 
cursed both my pony and myself, and prophesied our 
speedy destruction, until I told him that I had slept at 
the foot of the Dread Mother, which seemed to pacify 
him' a little.* 

The first day and a half were the worst part of this 
journey over the Shinkal Pass. Its features changed 
greatly after we reached the point where the Kado 
Tokpho divides into two branches, forded the stream to 

* Kalika, the most inaccessible pealc of tlie holy mountain Girnar, in 
Kathiawar. It is consecrated to Kali, or Dvirga, the goddess of destruc- 
tion ; is frequented by Aghoras — devotees who shun all society, and are 
said to eat carrion and human flesh. '1 he general belief is, tliat of every 
two people who visit Kalika, only one comes back. 



ZANSKAR. 237 

the right, and made a very steep ascent of about 1500 
feet. Above that we passed into an elevated picturesque 
valley, with a good deal of grass and a i^w birch bushes, 
which leads all the way up to the glacier that covers th^ 
summit of the pass. The usual camping-ground in this 
valley is called Ramjakpuk, and that place is well pro- 
tected from the wind ; but there are bushes to serve as 
fuel where we pitched our tents a mile or two below, at 
a height of about 15,000 feet. Towards evening there 
was rain and a piercing cold wind, with the thermometer 
at 36° Fahr., and many were the surmises as to whether 
we might not be overtaken by a snowstorm on the higher 
portion of the pass next day. 

In the morning the thermometer Avas exactly at 
freezing-point, the grass was white with hoar-frost, and 
there was plenty of ice over the streams as we advanced 
upwards. For some way the path was easy ; then there 
was a long steep ascent, and after that we came on the 
enormous glacier which is the crest of this awful pass. 
The passage on to the glacier from solid ground was 
almost iniperceptible, over immense ridges of blocks of 
granite and slabs of slate. Some of these first ridges 
rested on the glacier, while others had been thrown up 
by it on the rocky mountain-side ; but soon the greater 
ridges were left behind, and we were fairly on the glacier, 
where there were innumerable narrow crevasses, many 
of them concealed by white honeycombed ice, numerous 
blocks of stone standing on pillars of ice, and not a few 
rills, and even large brooks, the sun having been shining 
powerfully in the morning. It was not properly an ice- 
stream, but an immense glacial lake, on which we stood ;• 
for it was verj^ nearly circular ; it was fed by glaciers 
^and snow-slopes all round, and it lapped over into the 
villages beneath in several different directions. I was 
prevented by an incident, to be mentioned presently, 



238 . THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

from calculating the height of this pass, and the Trigono- 
metrical Survey does not appear to have done so ; but 
as Kharjak, the first village in Zanskar, is 13,670 feet, 
and it took me the greater part of next day to get 
down to Kharjak, though I camped this day at least 
15CO feet below the summit of the pass, on the Zanskar 
side, I conclude that the Shinkal cannot be less than 
l8,oco feet high, and that it may possibly be more. It 
•must be distinguished from another and neighbouring 
pass, also called the Shinkal, which is to be found in 
the Topographical Sheet, No. 46, and which runs from 
Burdun Gonpa apparently nowhere except into a region 
of glaciers. As the word Shinkal thus occurs twice on 
the frontier of Zanskar, it is probably a local word either 
for a pass or a glacier. Of course the difficulty of 
breathing at this height was very great ; some of my 
people were bleeding at the nose, and it would have been 
hardly possible for us to ascend much higher. Hum- 
boldt got up on the Andes to 21,000 feet, and the 
Schlagentweits in the Himaliya to 22,000 ; but such 
feats can only be accomplished in very exceptional states 
of the atmosphere. Higher ascents have been made in 
balloons, but there no exertion is required. In ordinary 
circumstances, 18,000 feet, or nearly 3000 feet higher 
than the summit of Mont Blanc, is about the limit of 
human endurance when any exertion is required ; and 
on the Shinkal I had the ad\-antage of a strong saga- 
cious pon\', which carried me over most of the glacier 
easily enough ; but I had a good deal of work on foot, 
and suffered much more from the exertions I had to 
make than any one else. 

On reaching the middle of this glacial lake, it became 
quite apparent where its sea of ice came from. On 
every side were steep slopes of snow or nevd, with im- 
mense beds of snow overhanfrincr them. It v>'as more 



ZANSKAR. 239 



like a Place de la Concorde than the basin of the 
Aletsch glacier in Switzerland ; and the surrounding 
masses of neve rose up in a much more abrupt and 
imposing manner than the surroundings of anj^ scene 
amid the High Alps. On the right, the snow-slopes 
were especially striking, being both beautiful and grand. 
A dazzling sheet of unbroken white snow rose up for 
more than a thousand feet, on a most steep incline, to 
vast overhanging walls of what I may call stratified niv^, 
from which huge masses came down, every now and 
then, with a loud but plangent sound. So all around 
there were great ridges, fields, domes, walls, and pre- 
cipices of snow and ice. No scene could rive a more 
impressive idea of Eternal Winter, or cf the mingled 
beauty and savagery of high Alpine life. Even Phooley- 
ram, my Kunawar Munshi, was struck by it. Up to 
this point I was not aware that he knew any English, 
and had not heard him speak in any language for days, 
he being rather sulky at having to walk for the most 
part; but on this occasion he suddenly turned round 
to me, and, to my intense surprise, said in English, "I 
think this must be the region of perpetual snow." That 
was doubtless a reminiscence of old book-knowledge of 
English which had almost passed from his mind, but 
was recalled by the extraordinary scene around, and it 
came in quite ingenuously and very appropriately. 

My attention, however, was soon recalled to a more 
practical matter. Knowing the danger of crossing a 
glacier at this height, and in the threatening weather 
which had been gathering for several days, I had given 
strict orders that all the bigarries, or porters, should 
keep together and beside me ; but, on the very summit 
of the pass, in the middle of the glacial lake, I found 
that three of them were missing, and that they were the 
three who were the most lightly laden, and who carried 



240 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

my most important effects — namely, my tent-poles, my 
bedding, and the portmanteau which contained my 
money. The tent-poles might have been dispensed 
with ; but still the want of them would have caused 
great inconvenience in an almost treeless region, where 
thev could not have been replaced. I could only have 
supplied the want of the bedding by purchasing sheep- 
skins, furs, or blankets alive with body-lice ; and the 
loss of the rupees would have been worse than either. 
I have no doubt this was a planned arrangement, who- 
ever planned it; for the bigavTies who carried these 
lio-ht burdens were strong men, and the obvious motive 
was that I should be compelled to turn back from 
Zanskar and take the Chandra-Bhaga route. On dis- 
covering this state of matters I was excessively angry, 
not so much because of the attempt to force my steps, 
as on account of the danger in which some ignorant 
fools had placed us all. Though the morning had been 
fine, bad weather had been gathering for several days ; 
the sky was now obscured ; clouds were rolling close 
round, and to have been overtaken by a snowstorm on 
that glacier would have been almost certain death to 
us all. So long as the sky was clear, and we had the 
snow-walls to guide us, it was eas}' enough to cross it ; 
but where would we have been in a blinding snow- 
storm on a glacier at least 1 8,000 feet high, with no 
central moraine, and lapping over on half a dozen 
different sides .'* Moreover, the snow would cover the 
rotten honeycombed ice which bridged over innumer- 
able crevasses. All the people about me, except, per- 
haps, the dhirsie, were quite ignorant of the danger we 
were in, and that exasperated me more at this tricky 
interference. As I was determined not to turn on my 
steps, I saw that not a moment was to be lost in taking 
decided measures ; so I made my servants and the 



ZANSKAR. 241 



higarrics continue across the glacier, with instructions 
to camp at the first available spot on the Zanskar side, 
and threatened them if they delayed, while I myself 
rode back, accompanied by one man, in search of the 
missing coolies and their loads. There was an obvious 
danger in this, because it involved the risk of being cut 
off from my people and baggage ; but it was really the 
only thing to be done in the circumstances consonant 
with a determination to proceed. So I waited until 
my party disappeared on the brow of the glacier, and 
then rode back in a savage and reckless humour over 
ice which I had previously crossed in a very cautious 
manner. I could easily retrace our track until we got 
to the great stony ridges, and then the man I had taken 
with me was useful. On getting off there, and descend- 
ing the valley a short way, I found my three light-laden 
gentlemen quietly reposing, and immediately forced 
them to resume their burdens, and go on before me. 
Even then they showed some unwillingness to proceed ; 
and I had to act the part of the Wild Horseman of the 
Glacier, driving them before me, and progging whoever 
happened to be hindmost with the iron spike of my 
heavy alpenstock, which considerably accelerated their 
movements. There was the most urgent reason for 
this, because, had we been half an hour later in getting 
over the summit of the pass, the probability is that we 
should have been lost. It began to snow before we g-ot 
off the glacier ; and when we descended a few hundred 
feet, it was snowing so heavily on the ice-lake we had 
just left, that we could not there have seen two yards 
before our faces, and it would have been quite impos- 
sible to know in which direction to turn, the tracks of 
our party being obliterated, and the crevasses, which 
ran in every direction, affording no guidance. Even on 
the narrow glaciers of the Alps a number of people have 

Q 



■242 THE ABODE OF SNO IV. 

been lost by being caught in snowstorms ; so it can be 
imagined what chance there would hav^e been for us 
on a great lake of ice above 1 8,000 feet high. Without 
the tracks and a sight of the surrounding snow-walls to 
guide us, we could only have wandered about hopelessly 
in the blinding storm ; and if we did not fall into a 
crevasse, through rotten ice concealed by the new-fallen 
snow, we might have wandered on to one of the outlets 
where the ice flowed over in steep hanging glaciers, 
which it would have been impossible to descend. For- 
tunately, however, we managed to keep the proper track 
in spite of the snow which was beginning to blind us. 
On reaching our camp, I found it pitched on a morass 
about 1500. or 2000 feet below the summit of the pass. 
The .thermometer was two degrees below freezing-point, 
and a little snow continued to fall about us. I felt ex- 
tremely exhausted after the exertion and excitement of 
the day ; but some warm soup and the glow of a fire of 
birch branches revived me, and I soon fell into a deep 
refreshing sleep. 

A little after midnight I was awakened by the intense 
cold, and went out of my tent, and a little way up the 
pass, to look upon the scene around. Everything was 
frozen up and silent. The pools of water about us had 
ice an inch thick ; my servants were in their closed ra?iii, 
and the bigarrics were sleeping, having, for protection 
from the cold, twisted themselves into a circle round the 
embers of their dying fire. There was the awful silence 
of the high mountains when the snow and ice cease to 
creep under the influence of the sunbeams. The storm 
had ceased^ — 

" The mute still air 
Was Music slumbering on her instrument ; " 

the snow-clouds also had entirely passed away. The 
moon, which w^s little past its full, cast a brilliant radi- 



ZANSKAR. 243 



ance on the savage scene around, so that every precipice, 
snow-wall, and icy peak was visible in marvellous dis- 
tinctness ; and in its keen light the great glaciers shone 
gloriously : but, brilliant as the moon was, its light was 
insufficient to obscure the stars, which, at this altitude, 
literally flamed above, displaying — - 

" All the dread magnificence of heaven." 

At night, amid these vast mountains, surrounded by 
icy peaks, shining starlike and innumerable as the hosts 
of heaven, and looking up to the great orbs flaming in 
the unfathomable abysses of space, one realises the im- 
mensity of physical existence in an overpowering and 
almost painful manner. What am I ? what are all these 
Tibetans and Paharries compared with the long line of 
gigantic mountains ? and what the mountains and the 
whole solar system as compared with any group of the 
great fixed stars ? But this whole stellar universe which 
we see around us distinctly, extending beyond the limits 
of human conception — sparkling with stars on which the 
earth would be no more than a grain of sand is upon 
the earth, and including the undistinguished orb., which 
afford the light of the Milky Way — would be no more 
to our vision, if beheld from one of those dim nebula 
rings, composed of more distant stars, than the wreath of 
smoke blown from a cannon's mouth. Though the facts 
have long been known, modern thought appears to be 
only now realising the power and boundless extent of 
the physical universe ; for the phenomenon of conversion, 
or the effective realisation of admitted truth, is by no 
means confined to purely religious circles, but is a pro- 
cess which extends over the whole range of human know- 
ledge. It is no wonder that such a realisation should 
engross the thoughts of many minds, and appear almost 
as a new revelation. But, accustomed as I was to the 



244 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

questions which thus arise, a strange feeling came over 
me amid those snowy peaks and starlit spaces. How 
wonderful the order and perfection of the inorganic uni- 
verse as compared with the misery and confusion of the 
organic ! Oxygen does not lie to hydrogen ; the white 
clouds pass gently into exquisitely-shaped flowers of 
snow; the blue ocean laughs unwounded round our star, 
and is gently drawn up to form the gorgeous veil of 
blue air and many-tinted cloud which makes the rugged 
earth beautiful. With perfectly graduated power, the 
sun holds the planets in their course, and, to the utmost 
range of mortal ken, the universe is filled with glorious 
orbs. But when we turn to the organic life around us, 
how strange the contrast, and especially as regards its 
higher manifestations ! A few individuals in every age, 
but especially at present, when they benefit by the ex- 
ceptional standing-ground which such discoveries as that 
of the use of steam has given to the people of this cen- 
tur}', may, arguing from their own experience, imagine 
that this is a satisfactory and happy world ; but, un- 
fortunately, it is only a select few who console them- 
selves with that illusion. Not in selfishness nor in anger, 
but in sad necessity, in' every age and clime, the voice of 
humanity has risen in wondering sorrow and question- 
ing to the silent heaven, and a different tone is adopted 
chiefly by those who are tossed up for a moment on the 
Avave into the sunlight. I need only refer to what the 
history of the animal creation (and more especially the 
human part of it) has been, and to the part which even 
its better tendencies play in augmenting the sum of 
wretchedness. The Hurdwar tigress, which held a boy 
down in her den, though his shrieks rang from the 
rocks around, while her cubs played with him, was gra- 
tifying a holy maternal instinct ; and the vivisectors of 
Europe are only slaking the sacred thirst for knowledge. 



ZANSKAR. 2 AS 

Dr Livingstone wrote in one of his last journals, after 
witnessing a massacre of inoffending villagers — men, 
women, and children — on the shore of Lake Tanganyika : 
" No one will ever know the exact loss on this briorht 
sultry, summer morning ; it gave me the impression of 
being in hell ;" but still 

" The heavens keep up their terrible composure." 

The scene to which he referred was far from being an 
abnormal one on the African continent, or different from 
its ordinary experience for countless generations ; and 
when he referred to the locality in which such scenes 
are supposed to be natural, perhaps the great African 
traveller hit the mark nearer than he was himself aware 
of, though that would not prove that there may not be 
a worse place below. I merely give one or two illustra- 
tions, and do not attempt a proof which would require 
one to go over the history of the human race and of the 
brute creation, which has been conjoined with it by the 
common bond of misery. I need scarcely say, also,' that 
the view of organic life which I have thus mildly indi- 
cated is the same as that of all the great thinkers of the 
earth, and of all our great systems of religion. The an- 
cient Hindu sages soon perceived and expressly taught 
that our life was utterly undesirable. It was his pro- 
found sense of the misery and worthlessness of life 
which drove Gautama Budha from his throne into the 
jungle, which underlies all the meaning of the religion 
which he founded, and which finds forcible expression in 
the Biidhist hymn, " All is transitory, all is misery, all is 
void, all is without substance." And the cardinal doc- 
trine of Christianity has the same meaning, though it is 
often verbally accepted without being realised. Accept- 
ing it, I cannot conceal from myself its true signification. 
That awful meaning plainly is, that the only way in 



246 THE ABODE OF SNOW, 

which the Creator of the human race could redeem it, 
or perhaps only a portion of it, from utter perdition, was 
by identifying Himself with it, and bearing- an infinite 
burden of sin and agony. Shirk the thought as we may, 
it cannot be denied that this is the real meaning of the 
Christian religion, and it finds innumerable corrobora- 
tions from every side of our knowledge. The burden is 
shifted, but has to be borne. Human existence is re- 
deemed and rendered tolerable, not from any efforts 
made out of its own great misery and despair, but from 
its Creator taking upon Himself the punishment and the 
agony which pursues His creation. Far be it from me 
to complain of the Providence which enabled me to pass 
through those tremendous scenes in safety, or to arraign 
the wisdom of the arrangements of the universe. I only 
suggest that existence in itself implies effort, pain, and 
sorrow ; and that the more perfect it is,' the more does 
it suffer. This may be a Budhistic idea ; but, as pointed 
out above, it is certainly a Christian doctrine, though 
the true meaning of it seems scarcely to have been 
understood. Of His own will. Deity is involved in the 
suffering of His creation, so that we cannot say where 
the agony ends. Our notions on this subject are con- 
fused by starting from the supposition that there is an 
effortless existence of pure unshadowed enjoyment for 
which no price has been paid ; and the more we realise 
the actual state of the case, though doing so may have 
a saddening effect, yet it will not necessarily lead us to 
doubt that existence vindicates itself, much less to 
arraign Eternal Providence, or the ways of God towards 
man. 

Thoughts of this character, however true they might be 
in themselves, were not fitted to give a cheerful aspect 
to that midnight scene on the Shinkal Pass. The 
" Zartusht Namah " says that when Zoroaster lay one 



ZANSKAR. 



247 



cold night under the stars, "understanding was the com- 
panion of his soul." I hope he found understanding to 
be a more agreeable companion than I did ; for there 
are moments of depression when we seem to feel still in 
need of some explanation why organic life should exist 

at all. 

"A life 

With large results so little rife, 
Though bearable, seems hardly worth 
This pomp of worlds, this pain of birth." 

Our civilisations reach a certain point, and then die 
corruptly, leaving half savage races, inspired by coarse 
illusions, to reoccupy the ground and react the same 
terrible drama. Wordsworth put the usual answer 
admirably when he said — 

•' O Life ! without thy checkered scene 
Of right and wrong, of weal and woe, 
Success and failure, could a ground 
For magnanimity be found, 
For faith, 'mid ruined hopes serene ? 
Or whence could virtue flow ? " 

But the difficulty of this argument, so far as our know- 
ledge goes, appears to be the enormous waste and use- 
less, endless cruelty of Nature, as also in the purely fan- 
ciful ground of the suppositions which have been brought 
to explain that cruelty, and which, even if admitted, 
do not really solve the mystery. Nor is there much 
consolation to be found in the views of the monadic 
school, which have been so forcibly expressed by Goethe 
in his poem Das Gottliche, which I may here translate, 
as it was in my mind on the Shinkal Pass : — 



Noble be Man, 

Helpful and good ; 

For this alone separateth him 

From every being 

"We do know of. 



Hail to the unfathomed 
Highest Being 
Whom we follow ! 
May He, too, teach us 
All believine. 



248 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



Ever Nature 

Is unfeeling : 

She lighteth tlie sun 

Over evil and good ; 

And for the destroyer 

Shine, as o'er the best, 

The moon and the stars. 

Stoi-ms and rivers, 
Thunder and hail 
Pursue their path, 
Ever hasting, 
Downward breaking 
On the sons of men. 

Also Fortune, 
Wand'ring along, 
Seizes the locks 
Of the innocent child, 
And empties her horn 
Over the guilty. 

For all of us must, 
After eternal 
Laws of iron, 
Fulfil our being. 



Mai) alone has power 
To grasp the Impossible. 
He separateth, 
Chooseth and judgeth 
And lighteth the evils 
The hour has brought forth. 

He alone dare 
Reward the righteous, 
The evil punish, 
Purify, and save j 
And usefully govern 
Doubting and error. 

And ever we honour 
Him whom we image, 
In honouring men 
Immortal in deeds 
Over great and small,* 

Let the noble man 
Be helpful and good ; 
Unwearied, let him shape 
The useful and right, 
Be to us an image 
Of the Eternal. 



This is well in its way; but when we consider what 
humanity has been able to accomplish in imaging the 
divine, it would seem as if a voice had said to us, as 
to the Prometheus of ^schylus, " Evermore shall the 
burden of the agony of the present evil wear thee down ; 
for he that shall deliver thee exists not in nature." 
There is some refuge, however, for the spirit in the order 
and beauty of this unfeeling inorganic nature. The 
Yliastron, or materia prima, has strange attractions of 
its own. So orthodox a thinker as John Foster could 
write — " There is through all nature some mysterious 
element like soul which comes with a deep significance 
to mingle itself with our own conscious being, . . . con- 



This stanza difTcrs somewhat from the original. 



ZANSKAR. 249 



veying into the mind trains and masses of ideas of an 
order not to be gained in the schools." Speaking of 
a departed friend and brilliant poet, Goethe said — "I 
should not be surprised if, thousands of years hence, I 
were to meet Wieland as the monad of a world — as a 
star of the first magnitude. . . . We can admit of no 
other destination for monads than as blessed co-operating 
powers sharing eternally in the immortal joys of gods." 
In like manner, when the most purely poetical genius of 
England foresaw his own passage from this troubled life, 
it was as a star that the soul of Adonais beaconed from 
the abodes of the Eternal ; and in describing the gain of 
his brother-poet, he could only break forth — 

*' It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long 
Swung blhid, in nnascended majesty, 
Silent, alone amid a heaven of song." 

These may be something more than poets' dreams, 
but "the immortal mind craves objects that endure," 
and such are scarcely to be found in lower forms of life, 
or in the inorganic world, for even — 

'* The lily fair a transient beauty wears, 
And the white snow soon weeps away in tears.** 

Logical thought becomes impossible when we rise into 
these 1 8, 000- feet regions of speculation ; and it may be 
safer to trust our instincts, such as they are. Apparently 
heedless of us, the worlds roll through space — 

•' While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise, 
We men who in our morn of youth defied 

The elements, must vanish ;— be it so ! 
Enough if something from our hands have power 
To live and act and serve the future hour ; 

And if, as toward the silent tomb we go, 
Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, 

We fed that ive are greater than we know." 



250 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

Next morning was excessively cold, and we were glad 
to hurry down the pass. The way ran down a not very 
steep slope to a glacier-stream (which it might be diffi- 
cult to ford during the heat of the day), then on a slight 
ascent to the end of an enormous spur of the mountains, 
where there was a very long and extremely steep descent 
to La-kung — " the pass-house," a large, low, stone room, 
with no window but the door, and with open spaces 
between the stones, — which has been erected for the 
protection of shepherds and travellers. We were now 
within the watershed of the Indus, in the valley of the 
Kharjak Chu, one of the mountain- streams which form 
the Tsarap Lingti river. There were very formidable- 
looking mountains to the right, through which the dliirzie, 
who was a great geographical authority, assured me there 
was no available pass to Ladak. In and descending 
from the mountains to the left — that is to say, on the 
left bank of the river down to Padam, and on the right 
bank of the river which runs from the Pense-la Pass 
down to Padam on the other side — there is probably 
the most tremendous series of glaciers to be found in the 
world, out of arctic and antarctic regions. There are 
literally hundreds of them ; they extend on through 
Suru, and even within the boundary of Kashmir proper, 
and at some parts they come down into the large rivers, 
threatening to block them up. 

As the path runs down its right bank, we had to ford 
the Kharjak Chu ; but though broad and rapid, it is 
shallow at this place, and there was little difficulty in 
doing so ; but in warmer weather it must be impossible 
to cross it during the day. The path now followed the 
windings of the stream, sometimes over grassy meads, 
and anon over aggravating stone avalanches. We were 
now fairly in the almost fabulous Zanskar, but no signs 
of human habitations were visible. At first we passed 



ZANSKAR. 251 

beneath tremendous cliffs of cream-coloured granite, 
which, as we got farther down, appeared as one side of 
an enormous detached pyramidal mass, high and steep 
as the Matterhorn, and so smooth that scarcely any 
snow lodged upon it, though it could have been little 
short of 20,000 feet high. From some points this 
extraordinary mountain looked almost like a column; 
and I am sure if any Lama, Bawa, or lover of inorganic 
nature could get up to the top of it, he would enjoy the 
most perfect seclusion. Of all the mountains I have 
ever beheld, those of Zanskar were the most picturesque, 
weird, astounding, and perplexing. For several marches, 
all the way down the valley of this river, and through 
almost all the valley of the Tsarap Lingti, the precipice 
walls were not only of enormous height, but presented 
the most extraordinary forms, colours, and combinations 
of rock. Even the upper Spiti valley has nothing so 
wonderful. There were castles, spires, plateaus, domes, 
aiguilles of solid rock, and spires composed of the 
shattered fragments of some fallen mountains. At the 
entrance of many of the ravines there were enormous 
cliffs, thousands of feet high, v/hich looked exactly as if 
they were bastions which had been shaped by the hands 
of giants. Every mile or so we had to scramble across 
the remains of some stone avalanche which deflected 
the stream from its course, and under cliffs from which 
great rocks projected, so that it looked as if a slight 
touch would send them thundering down. Then the 
colour of these precipice walls was of the richest and 
most varied kind. The predominant tints were green, 
purple, orange, brown, black, and whitish-yellow, but I 
cannot say how many more there might have been ; 
and green, purple, and c^eep brown were most frequent. 
It can easily be imagined that, with such colours, the 
dazzling sunhght and the shadows of the mountains 



252 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

falling over the valley worked the most wonderful 
effects. Sometimes the sunlight came down through a 
dark-coloured ravine like a river of gold. In certain 
lights the precipices appeared almost as if they were of 
chalcedony and jasper. The dark-brown manganese- 
like cliffs looked exceedingly beautiful ; but no sooner 
was one extraordinary vista left behind than a different 
but not less striking one broke upon the view. The 
geology of these valleys was rather puzzling; for a 
remarkable feature here, as elsewhere to a less degree 
among the Himaliya, is tlie way in which various rocks 
pass into each other, as the clay- slate into mica-slate, 
the mica-slate into granite, the quartzose conglomerate 
into greywacke, and the micaceous schist into gneiss. 
I was unable to pay any special attention to the geology 
of this interesting region, and indeed I found the conti- 
nuous journey I had undertaken rather too much for my 
strength. Could I have rested more frequently I would 
have enjoyed it more, and have observed more closely. 
As it was, I had continually to press onwards, and being 
alone caused a great strain on my energies, because 
everything in that case depends on the one traveller 
himself. He has to see that proper arrangements 
are made ; that his servants do not practise extortion ; 
that his camp is roused at an early hour in the morningj 
and he has almost to sleep with one eye open. Any- 
thing like an examination of these Zanskar cliffs would 
have required several days specially devoted to them, 
which I could by no means spare. Some of them were 
composed of rocks which I had never met with before; 
and others, judging from the fragments in the valley 
below, were of quartzose conglomerate, passing into 
greywacke of grey and greenish colour, of clay-slate, 
very fine grained mica-slate, gneiss, greenstone, smooth 
soapy talc, and porphyry. There seemed to be much 



ZANSKAR. 253 



zeolite, and probably other minerals abounded. This 
part of Zanskar does not seem to have been examined 
by the Trigonometrical Survey, and is nearly a blank in 
all our maps. 

After passing down the valley for several hours, we 
came at last upon Kharjak or Khargia, the first village 
of Zanskar, comprising little more than about a dozen 
houses, and with only two or three poor fields. There 
were a great number, however, of yaks and ponies, and 
no signs of poverty about the place. The people are 
Tibetan-speaking Lama Budhists, and. differ from those 
of the other Tibetan provinces of the Himaliya only in 
being more'pastoral, more primitive, more devout, more 
hospitable, and less democratic. Kharjak is a depen- 
dency of the larger village of Thesur, about a day's 
journey down the valley. The principal Talukdar of 
both was in it when I arrived, and his reception of us, 
as well as that given by all the people, formed a very 
pleasing contrast to the inhospitality of the Lahaulies, 
The Talukdar gave me a rupee as a JuLziir or act of 
obeisance, and insisted on furnishing my servants with 
horses for the next two days' journey, purely out of the 
hospitality of a mountaineer. He himself accompanied 
us these two days, with three times the number of men 
that I required or paid for, merely to show me respect, 
and he was very kind and attentive in every way. Any 
sportsmen who have gone into Zanskar have done so 
from Kashmir, and only as far as Padam, so that in this 
part of the country Sahibs are almost unknown. I am 
not aware that any one has passed through it since Mr 
Heyde did so, and in these circumstances, hospitality, 
though pleasant, is not to be wondered at. Kharjak, as 
I have mentioned, is 1 3,670 feet high, and it is inhabited 
all the year round. The sky was overclouded in the 



254 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

afternoon ; some rain fell, and a violent wind arose, 
which continued through great part of the night. 

Around this highly- elevated village there is an 
unusual number of large Choten, nearly solid edifices, 
generally composed of large square platforms, placed 
one above another, and surrounded by the larger half 
of an inverted cone, which supports a tapering pillar 
bearing a Dharma emblem. These Choten were ori- 
ginally receptacles for offerings, and for the relics of 
departed saints, and they thus came to be considered a 
holy symbol, and to be made large without containing 
either offerings or relics. They are sometimes of nearly 
a pyramidal shape. According to Koeppen, the proper 
names for them are in Tschod, r Ten, or g Dung, r Ten, 
and General Cunningham says that the latter word 
denotes the proper boneholders or depositaries of holy 
relics ; but Choten, or something very like it, has 
come to be generally applied to all edifices of this kind. 
There are more than a dozen of them about Kharjak, 
some nearly twenty feet high, and they do not seem to 
be associated with any particular saint. Some of them 
had what by courtesy might be taken for a pair of eyes 
figured on the basement; and this, Cunningham informs 
us, means that they are dedicated to the supreme 
Budha, "the eye of the universe." One also frequently 
finds among the Tibetans small Choten, three or four 
inches h1*-;h, and I was shown one of these which \vas 
said to contain the«ashes of a man's wife. 

Zanskar is rich, too, in the Mani which are to be found 
sometimes in the most desolate situations. These are 
long tumuli or broad dykes of stones, many of which 
stones are inscribed or sculptured. They are met with 
even high up among the mountains, and vary in length 
from thirty feet to so many as a thousand and even more. 
Their usual height is about five feet, and the breadth 



ZANSKAR. 255 



about ten. I suppose I must have passed hundreds of 
these Mani on my journey ; and the Tibetans invariably 
pass so as to keep them on the right-hand side, but I 
have been unable to discover the meaning of this prac- 
tice. The stones are beautifully inscribed, for the most 
part, with the universal Lama prayer, " Om mani pad 
mehaun ;" but Herr Jaeschke informs me that sometimes 
whole pages of the Tibetan Scriptures are to be found 
upon them, and they have, more rarely, well-executed 
bas-reliefs of Budha, of various saints, and of sacred 
Budhistic symbols. These stones are usually prepared 
and deposited for some special reason, such as for safety, 
on a journey, for a good harvest, for the birth of a son ; 
and the prodigious number of them in so thinly peopled 
a country indicates an extraordinary waste of human 
energy. 

In. a certain formal sense the Tibetans are undoubtedly 
a praying people, and the most pre-eminently praying 
people on the face of the earth. They have praying 
stones, praying pyramids, praying flags 'flying over every 
house, praying wheels, praying mills, and the universal 
prayer, " Om mani pad me haun," is never out of their 
mouths. In reference to that formula, Koeppen, in his 
" Lamaische Hierarchie und Kirche,'' p. 59,"makes the 
following striking remarks, the truth of which every 
Tibetan traveller will allow : — " These primitive six syl- 
lables which the Lamas repeat are, of all the prayers 
of earth, the prayer which is most frequently repeated, 
written, printed, and conveniently offered up by me- 
chanical means. They constitute the only prayer which 
the common Mongols and Tibetans know ; they are the 
first words which the stammering child learns, and are 
the last sighs of the dying. The traveller murmurs 
them upon his journey ; the herdsman by his flock ; the 
wife in her daily work ; the monk in all stages of con- 



256 ^ THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

templation, that is to say, of nihilism ; and' the}^ are the 
cries of conflict and triumph. One meets with them every- 
where wherever the Lama Church has estabhshed itself 
— on flags, rocks, trees, walls, stone monuments, uten- 
sils, strips of paper, human skulls, skeletons, and so 
forth. They are, according to the meaning of the be- 
liever, the essence of all religion, of all wisdom and 
revelation ; they are the way of salvation, and the 
entrance to holiness. ' These six S}'llables unite the 
joys of all Budhas in one point, and are the root of all 
doctrine. They are the heart of hearts out of which 
everything profitable and blessed flows ; they are the 
root of all knowledge, the guide to rebirth in a higher 
state of being, the door which the curse ^f birth has 
closed up, the ship which carries us out of the mutations 
of birth, the light which illumines the black darkness, 
the valiant conqueror of the Five Evils, the flaming 
ocean in which sins and sorrows are destroyed, the 
hammer which shatters all pain,' — and so forth." 

That is pretty well for a glorification of " Om mani 
pad me haun," and one becomes impatient to know 
what these mystic S3dlables mean, and how they come 
to possess such tremendous power. It is rather dis- 
appointing to find that the closest English version of them 
which can be given is — " O God ! the jewel in the lotus ! 
Amen." I have gone carefully into this subject, and 
little more can be got out of it. Substantially the prayer, 
or rather exclamation, is not of Tibetan, but of Sanscrit 
origin. Koeppen translates it simply as — " O ! das Klei- 
nod im Lotus ! Amen." But that is quite insufficient, 
because the great force of the formula lies in " Om," the 
sacred syllable of the Hindus, which ought never to be 
pronounced, and which denotes the absolute, the supreme 
Divinity. In order to show the literal meaning, the 



ZANSKAR. 257 



words may be translated into their English equivalents, 
thus — 

Om Mani Pad me Haun. 

O God ! the jewel lotus in Amen ! 

I need not go into the mystic explanations of this for- 
mula, as, for instance, that each of the five syllables 
which follow the sacred "om'' is a preservative against 
a particular great class of evils. Suffice to note that the 
repeating of this prayer — whether vocally or by various 
mechanical means — has become a sacred and protecting 
symbol, such as making the sign of the cross is among 
Roman Catholic Christians. However it may be with 
the more intelligent of the Lamas, to the ordinary Tibe- 
tan mind, " Om mani pad me haun" is only known in 
that sense, and as a prayer for the wellbeing of the six 
classes of creatures, — to wit, human beings, animals, evil 
spirits, souls in heaven, souls in purgatory, and souls in 
hell. Koeppen does not seem to have been aware of this 
special application of the prayer as it is now used, but 
that is really the meaning universally associated with it ; 
and so it comes to be an aspiration of universal benevo- 
lence, which is supposed to have a protecting influence 
on those who give utterance to it, or reproduce it in 
any way. The original meaning of a charm of this kind 
does not much matter when once it obtains general 
acceptance ; and it is quite in accordance vvith the pecu- 
liar value attached to it, that the reproduction of it on 
stones, flags, and rolls of paper, should be regarded as 
religious worship, as well as the oral repetition of it. 

It is in this way that the prayer-wheels and prayer- 
mills are used. These cylinders are filled with rolls of 
paper, on which this prayer, and occasionally other 
charms, are written many times, and the turning them 
from left to right is supposed to be a means of offering 
up the prayer. The Lamas keep constantly repeating it 

R 



258 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

when turning their hand-cylinders upon an axis which ' 
they grasp below. These cylinders are very often shortly 
called '' Mani," a word which is loosely applied to many 
matters connected with the Lama religion ; but, accord- 
ing to Cunningham, their proper designation is " Mani 
— ^ chhos — khor," or the "precious religious wheel." 
This agrees with Koeppen, who adds, that they are not 
originally Tibetan, but were used in India four hundred 
)'ears before the Christian era. On that latter point, 
however, he gives no authority for his statement, which 
is opposed to the opinion of Klaproth, and of such an 
experienced archaeologist as Cunningham, who sa}'s of 
the prayer-cylinder, " I can vouch that I have never seen 
it represented on any piece of Indian sculpture." I un- 
derstand that about Darjiling it is not difficult to get 
prayer-cylinders, but they are probabl}' manufactured 
specially for the foreign market. Mr Heyde told me that 
the only wa}' in which he had been able to supply the 
demand of friends for them was to get them manufag- 
tured ; and all my efforts to purchase from Lamas a 
specimen which had been in use were entirely fruitless. 

Our next day's journey to the Talukdar's village of 
Thesur was a sort of honorary procession, and the path 
was prett}' good, though there were some ugly ravines 
and high banks above the river. Before reaching Thesur 
we had to cross to the left bank of the Kharjak Chu, 
and this was not easily accomplished. The stream was 
broad, and so rapid that a single man on horseback 
might have been swept away; so we had to join hands 
and go over in an extended line — the riders, so to speak, 
supporting the horses, and the action of the whole party 
preventing any individual steed from being carried down. 
There were no trees at this village, but the houses were 
large, and there were a number of sloping but hardly 
terraced fields. The next morning took us to the 



ZAXSKAR. 259 

junction of the Kharjak Chu with the Tsarap Lingti, 
before which we passed the Yal bridge, one of single 
rope, on which a man had all the appearance of flying 
through the air, as the slope from one side was consider- 
able. The junction of the two rivers was a beautiful 
scene. On the right, the Pune Gonpa, or monastery, 
had a picturesque castellated appearance ; and the 
water of the Tsarap Lingti was of a clear, deep blue, 
with long, large, deep pools. The stream we had 
descended was of a mudd}^ grey colour; and for some 
way after their junction, the distinction between thq 
water of the tv\ o rivers was as marked as it is at the 
junction of the Rhone and the Arve beneath the Lake 
of Geneva ; but (as is usual in unions between human 
beings of similarly dissimilar character) the coarse and 
muddy river soon gained the advantage, and polluted 
the whole stream. Probably there is a lake up in that 
unsurveyed part of- the mountains from whence the 
Tsarap Lingti descends, and hence its waters are so 
pure ; for the rocks between which it ran are of the same 
character as those of its muddy tributary. Shortly after 
we passed Char (12,799 feet), perched most picturesquely 
on the other side of the river, but connected with our 
side by a very well constructed and easy jhi'da. Im- 
mediately after, there was a camping-ground, and some 
attempt was made at a change of bigarries, but the Char 
people refused to have anything to do v/ith the burden 
of our effects. I found my tent pitched at the little 
village of Suley, on a very small, windy, exposed plat- 
form, about a thousand feet above the river, and had 
it moved on again. We then passed down into a tre- 
mendous ravine, at the bottom of which there was a 
narrow deep gorge choked up with pieces of rock, be- 
neath which a large mountain stream foamed and 
thundered. Soon after, we reached a bad, but sheltered 



26o THE ABODE OF SNOW. . ' 

and warm camping-ground, on the brink of the Tsarap 
Lingti, and there stayed for the night, the Suley people 
bringing us supplies. The next day took us over very 
difficult ground, with no villages on our side of the river, 
but with Dargong and Itchor on the other. We camped 
at the village of Mune, beside a fine grove of willow- 
trees, the first I had seen in Zanskar, and near the Mune 
Gonpa, the Lamas of whjch were indisposed to allow me 
to examine their retreat. The next day took me to 
Padam, over similar ground. We descended by a steep 
slope, dangerous for riding, into the valley of the Tema 
Tokpho, and crossed that river just above its confluence. 
Soon after, the great Burdun Gonpa appeared, where 
also objection was made to my admission; and, on 
approaching Padam, I had the great pleasure of seeing 
a i^\K square miles of level ground, which, though it was 
in great part covered with white stones, afforded much 
relief to a mind somewhat overburdened with precipice- 
walls and gorges. At Padam we were told to camp in 
a very unsuitable place half a mile from the town, among 
fields which next morning were flooded with water ; but 
I would not do so, and found a delightful camping- 
ground about a quarter of a mile to the west of the 
town, on a fine grassy terrace under the shelter of an 
immense rock, which completely protected us from the 
wind. 

This capital of Zanskar may be called a town, or even 
a city, as matters go in the Himdliya, and was at least 
the largest village I had seen since leaving Shipki in 
Chinese Tibet. It has a population of about 2000, and 
is the residence of a Thanadar, who governs the whole 
province as representative of the Maharajah of Kashmir, 
and who is supported by a small force of horse and foot 
soldiers. In the afternoon this Mohammedan ofiicial 
called, and presented a Jiaziir of Baltistan apricots, and 



ZANSKAR. 261 



said he would send a sowar or trooper with me to Surii 
in order to prevent any difficulty on the way. He was 
civil and agreeable, and was specially interested in my 
revolver ; but I did not get much information out of him 
beyond learning that in winter the people of Padam 
were pretty well snowed up in their houses ; and, if that 
be the case there, at a height of only 11,373 feet, what 
must it be in the villages which are over 13,000 feet high ? 
No province could be much more secluded than Zan- 
skar is. The tremendous mountains which bound it, 
the high passes which have to ba crossed in order to 
reach it, and its distance (both linear and practical) from 
any civilised region, cut it completely off from the 
foreign influences which are beginning to affect some 
districts of even the Himaliya. There is a want of any 
progressive element in itself, and its Tibetan-Budhist 
people are in opposition to the influence of Mohammedan 
Kashmir. It yields some small revenue to the Maharajah; 
but the authority of his officers and soldiers in it is very 
small, and they are there very much by sufferance. It 
is the same in the Tibetan portion of Suru; but when I 
got over the long, wild, habitationless tract which lies 
between the Kingdom monastery and the village of 
Suru, among a population who were more Kashmir and 
Mohammedan than Tibetan and Budhist, I found an 
immense change in the relations between the people on 
the one hand and the soldiers on the other. The former 
were exceedingly afraid of the soldiers, and the latter 
oppressed the people very much as they pleased. There 
was nothing of that, however, visible in Zanskar, where 
the zemindars paid little respect to the soldiers, and 
appeared to manage the affairs of the country them- 
selves, much as the zemindars do in other districts of 
the Himaliya which are entirely free from Mohammedan 
control. 



262 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

According to Cunningham, Zanskar has an area of 
3000 square miles, and a mean elevation of 13,154 feet, as 
deduced from seven observations made along " the course 
of the valley ;" but in no sense can it be correctly spoken 
of as one valley ; for it is composed of three great valleys. 
Taking Padam as a centre, one of these runs up the 
course of the TsarapLingti, which we have just descended; 
another, which we are about to ascend, lies along the 
upper Zanskar river, up towards the Pense-la Pass and 
Surii ; while a third is the valley of the Zanskar river 
proper, which is formed b}^ the junction of the two 
streams just mentioned : these, when conjoined, flow in 
a nearly northern direction towards the upper Indus. In 
shape, this province is something \\\e. the three legs of 
the Manx coat of arms. Its greatest length must be 
nearly ninety miles, and its mean breadth must be over 
fifty ; but this gives no idea of what it is to the traveller, 
who has to follow the course of the rivers and meets with 
difficult ground. It took me ten marches to get from 
one end of Zanskar to the other ; and no one with loaded 
coolies could have done it in less than nine. Cunning- 
ham translates the name Zanskar, or rather " Zangs-kar," 
as " white copper," or brass ; but an enthusiastic Gaelic 
scholar suggests to me that it is the same as Sanquhar 
of Scotland, and has a similar meaning. This latter 
supposition may seem very absurd at first sight, Tibetan 
being a Turanian, and Gaelic an Aryan language ; but 
his contention only is that the names of innumerable 
places in Tibet and Tartary are identical witli the local 
names of the Gaelic language; and for almost ev^ery 
Tibetan name I mentioned to him he found a Gaelic 
synonym, having a meaning which suited the character 
of the Tibetan localities very appropriately. I cannot,, 
do more tlian refer to this matter here, but should not be 
surprised if this view were borne out by a strictly scien- 



ZANSKAR. 263 



tific investigation of the subject ; for it struck me forcibly 
before I left Zanskar that there must be some unknown 
relationship between the people of that province and the 
Scottish Highlanders. The sound of their language, the 
brooches which fasten their plaids, the varieties of tartan 
which their woollen clothes present, and even the fea- 
tures of the people (which are of an Aryan rather than 
a Tartar type), strongly reminded me of the Scotch 
Highlanders. The men had tall athletic forms, long 
faces, aquiline noses ; and the garment,"? of the women in 
particular presented many of the clan tartans, though 
the check was not so common as the stripe. Division of 
races and of languages have been employed of late to an 
unscientific extreme; and there is nothing improbable 
in the supposition that a particular Himaliyan tribe, of 
mixed Aryan and Turanian blood, speaking a mixed 
language, which became almost entirely Aryan as the\- 
advanced, but preserving especially the local names of 
their Tibetan birthplace, with some peculiarities of dress 
and custom, may have pushed their way along the 
" Stony Girdle of the Earth " to the islands (if they were 
then islands) of the Western Sea. R and n being inter- 
changeable, and as words signifying crossing or weaving 
across, it is not absolutely impossible that tartan ma}' 
have some relationship to Tartar, the name of the cloth 
being taken from that of the people who wore it. This is 
about as likely as the usual derivation of tartan from the 
French tiret'aine ; but it would be almost as unwarrant- 
able to affirm it without some positive indication of its 
having been the case, as it would be to accept the. deri- 
vation of an ingenious and learned friend who insists 
that the word tartan obtained its present application 
when the Ass}^rian General Tartan (Isa. xx. 1-4) took 
Ashdod, and carried away the Egyptians captive in an 
imperfectly clothed condition, which must have made 



264 THE ABODE OF SNOW, 

them bear a striking resemblance to Scotch Highlanders 
in their national costume. 

Starting from Padam in the afternoon of the next day, 
we proceeded in a north-westerly direction up the pretty 
level, open valle}- of the upper Zanskar river, and camped 
at Seni Gonpa, where there is a small village. The next 
day also, on the journey to Phe, the road was good, and 
the valley pleasant, but we had to cross to the left bank 
of the river by a long and ^if^cxxXt jhi'da. It was amusing 
to notice the looks of the dogs as, wrapt in plaids, they 
were unwillingly carried over on the backs of coolies; 
and one of my servants became so nervous in the middle, 
that he was unable to go either backwards or forwards, 
until one of the mountaineers was sent to his assistance. 
After passing two villages, we came on a long stretch of 
uninhabited ground that extended to Phe, and here met 
with the commencement of a tremendous snowstorm, 
which, on and about the i6th and 17th September, swept 
over the whole line of the western Himaliya from Kash- 
mir, at least as far as the Barra Lacha Pass, closing the 
passes, and preventing the Yarkund traders from getting 
down to Simla, as noted in the Indian newspapers at the 
time. Such a snowstorm is not usual so early in the season, 
but the Zanskaries said it occasionally occurred. It had 
often struck me how little attention the people of the 
Himaliya paid to the weather, and how ignorant they 
Avere of its signs ; and the present occasion was no ex- 
ception to that rule, as the storm appeared to take our 
party quite by surprise. The morning had been cold 
and dark, but with that peculiar thickening of the air 
which indicates the gathering of snow. As we advanced 
up the valley, an ocean of mist began to hurry across it 
from the glaciers and snowy mountains on the left or 
south-western side, but admitting, at first, occasional 
gleams of sickly sunlight, which soon disappeared alto- 



ZANSKAR. 26s 



gether. At first, also, there was almost no wind where 
we were, though it was blowing a hurricane above, and 
the mist rushed over from the one snowy range to the 
other with marvellous rapidity. After a time, however, 
violent gusts of wind and blasts of rain came down upon 
us ; the rain changed into sleet ; a violent wind blew 
steadily ; and before we reached the village of Phe it was 
snowing heavily. To camp in our tents in these circum- 
stances v.'as not desirable ; and the sowar whom the 
Thanadar of Padam had given me prevailed on the 
principal zemindar of Phe to allow us to take up our 
quarters in his house ; and there we had to stay until 
the day after next, when the force of the storm had ex- 
hausted itself. 

This house, which was a typical Tibetan residence 
of the better class, was built of stone, without mortar, 
but interspersed by large beams, which must have been 
brought from a distance, and which add to the security 
of the edifice. It occupied an area of, I should think, 
about eighty feet in length, and sixty in breadth, was 
two-storeyed, and had a small courtyard in front. All 
the lower rooms were occupied by ponies, sheep, and 
cattle ; and savoury were the smells, and discordant the 
cries, which they sent upstairs, or rather through the 
roof of their abode, during my two days' confinement 
above. The upper storey was reached by a stone stair- 
case, which ascended partly outside the house and partly 
inside, and which, in its latter portion, required one to 
stoop painfully. Part of this storey, fronting the court- 
yard, had no roof, and so formed a kind of balcony, one 
end of which, however, was roofed over, and afforded 
shelter and a cooking-place for my servants. From 
that, a low passage, on both sides of which there were 
some small rooms or closets, led into the principal 
apartment of the house, on one side of which there was 



266 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

another large room, occupied by the women and chil- 
dren, with a very small window and balcony. On 
another side there was a storeroom ; and on the third 
there was a dark room which was used as a chapel, 
and in which a light was kept constantly burning. The 
principal apartment, in which I took up my residence, 
along with the husbands of the wife, and apparently 
any one who might drop in, including a Balti wanderer, 
was about forty feet long by thirt}'. It had no window, 
properly speaking — light, air, and, I may add, snow, 
finding admission through a square hole in the roof, 
with sides each about six feet. Directly below this, but 
not so large, there was a corresponding hole in the floor, 
so that a sort of well ran down to the ground-floor, and 
served to carry off the rain and snow which are ad- 
mitted by the hole in the roof. This is an ingenious 
arrangement, and shows that the human mind may 
have some invention even when it is not equal to con- 
ceive of a chimney. The room was just high enough to 
allow of a tall man standing upright beneath the beams; 
and the roof was about four feet thick, being composed 
of thorn-bushes pressed very closely together, and rest- 
ing on several large strong beams. Inside, the walls 
were plastered with a kind of coarse cJiunavi ; the floor 
was composed of rafters and slabs of slate ; and on the 
floor, resting against one of the walls, there were two or 
three small stone fireplaces, which constituted the only 
furniture, except one or two chests, which served as 
seats. 

To say that this was in itself a pleasant place of 
residence would be incorrect. The large aperture in 
the centre of the roof created a low temperature which 
required a fire to make it tolerable, but the smoke from 
the fire knew when it was well off, and showed a re- 
markable aversion to going out at the aperture. Con- 



ZANSKAR. 267 



sequently, there was the alternative of being- starved 
with cold or being occasionally half choked and blinded 
with the pungent smoke of birch and thorn bushes. 
However, the smoke, after going up the wall, did collect 
pretty close to the roof, the inside of which it had 
covered with a thick layer of soot. That was not 
nearl}' so great an evil as the porous character of the 
roof itself, through which the snow soaked only too 
easily, and, being thoroughly melted by the time it got 
through the roof, fell ever3^where into the apartment in 
large, black, dirty drops, so that it was somewhat diffi- 
cult to find a spot on which one could keep dry or 
clean. 

On the second day, when there was no appearance of 
the snowstorm ceasing, and there was great probability 
of my having to spend a winter of eight months in Phe, 
I began seriously to consider what state I should likely 
be in after so prolonged a residence in such an apart- 
ment. The prospect was by no means a pleasant one, 
and I resolved, if I had to remain, to take up my abode 
in the half-covered balcony. My liquors were at their 
last ebb, and my tea was disappearing ; but I could 
keep myself going in coffee by means of roasted barley, 
and there would be no want of milk, meal, and mutton. 
Perhaps a knowledge of the Tibetan language might 
pr6ve more useful to me than that of English ; and 
an intelligent being might find more satisfaction as a 
Nimapa Lama, than as either Primate or Prime Minister 
of England in the present age. 

The polyandric wife and mother of this house kept to 
the inner room ; but there was a delightful trio which 
kept me company in the public apartment, and was 
composed of the aged grandmother and two fine chil- 
dren, a girl and boy of five and six years old respec- 
tively. They were delicious children, fair almost as 



268 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

northern Europeans, frolicsome and wild whenever the 
grandmother was away or not looking after them, and 
the next moment as demure as mice when the cat is in 
the room. They ate with great gusto enormous piles 
of thick scones covered with fine rancid butter. No 
young lions ever had a more splendid appetite, or 
roared more lustily for their food. The old woman 
kept them winding yarn and repeating " Om mani pad 
me haun ; " but the moment her back was turned, they 
would spring up, dance about, open their sheepskin 
coats and give their little plump rosy bodies a bath of 
cold air; but v/hen old granny, who was blear-eyed 
and half blind, hobbled back, they were seated in their 
places in an instant, hard at work at " Om mani pad," 
and looking as if butter would not melt in their mouths. 
Sometimes they would sit down beside me and gaze 
into the fire, with all the wisdom and solemnity of Biidha 
in their countenances ; then the boy's naked foot would 
noiselessly steal out until he caught a burning branch 
between his toes, on which the girl would give him a 
violent nudge, push him over, and they would both 
jump up laughing and run away. The grandmother 
too was interesting. She said she had seen seventy 
years — she did not know how many more, and the 
Tibetans rarely know their own ages. There was be- 
tween her and the children that confidential relationship 
we often see in Europe, and which, being born of love, 
creates no fear; and she also found room in her affec- 
tions for a young kitten, which drove Djeola almost 
mad. Though nearly blind, she plied her distaff in- 
dustrious!}', and she showed her piety by almost 
continuously repeating the great Lama prayer. It is 
true she never got any farther than " Om mani pad," ■ 
thereby getting over more repetitions of it than would 
have been possible had she pronounced the whole 



ZANSKAR. 269 



formula ; but let us hope the fraud on heaven was 
passed over. A less agreeable occupation in which she 
indulged was that of freeing her own garments and 
those of the children from unpleasant parasites ; for, 
after doing so, she always carefully placed them on the 
floor without injuring them ; for it would never have 
done to neutralise the effect of the prayer for the six 
classes of beings by destroying any of them. To the 
looker-on, this placing of parasites on the floor is apt to 
suggest foreboding reflections. But, to tell the truth, 
one gets accustomed to that sort of thing. Whatever 
care be taken, it is impossible to travel for any time 
among the Himaliya without making the acquaintance 
of a good many little friends. It is impossible to de- 
scribe the shuddering disgust with which the discovery 
of the first is made ; but, by the time you get to the 
five-hundredth, you cease to care about them, and take 
it as a matter of course. When our bedding and all 
our baggage is carried on the backs of coolies, there 
must be some transference of that class of parasites 
which haunt the human body and clothes; but they are 
easily got rid of entirely when the supply stops. 

Though the children were so fair, the men of the 
house were dark and long-featured, with almost nothing 
of the Tartar in their countenances ; but their language 
is quite Tibetan, and I should say that we have here 
a distinct instance of a people who speak the language 
of an alien race, and that alone. It will be curious if 
my supposition be correct that these Zanskaries are the 
"congeners of the Celtic race, and the subject is well 
worthy of examination. I was not admitted into the 
room dedicated to religious purposes, but saw there 
were Budhist images, brass basins, and saucer-lights 
similar to those used both by the Chinese and the 
Indians. The young Balti who had taken refuge with 



270 THE ABODE OF SNO IV. 

us from the storm displayed some honesty, though he 
was going in a different direction from ours ; for, on 
my giving him four annas (sixpence) for quite a number 
of the apricots of his country which he had presented 
me with, he said that was too much, and brought me 
more of his dried fruit, which must have been carried 
over a difficult journey of weeks. I met several large 
parties of Baltis in this part of the Himaliya, and was 
struck by their Jewish appearance. Though Moham- 
medans, their language is Tibetan, and Nurdass had no 
difficulty in talking with them. Here is another in- 
stance where a people, evidently not of a Tartar race, 
speak a Tartar language; and I must again protest 
against the extreme to which the philologists have em- 
plo}'ed the clue of language. The Jews of China have 
entirely lost their own tongue, and their nationality has 
been recognised only by two or three customs, and by 
their possession of copies of the Pentateuch — which 
they are unable to read. Such matters are often as 
well treated by men of general knowledge and large 
capacity of thought as by the devotees of some par- 
ticular branch of knowledge. 

On the second morning after our arrival at Phe the 
storm had entirely passed off, and a council of the 
villagers was held to determine whether or not we 
could be got over the Pense-la Pass. I should have 
been delighted to remain in Zanskar all winter, though 
not in such an apartment as I have described, but was, 
in a manner, bound in honour to my servants to pro- 
ceed if it were possible to do so ; and the villagers were 
anxious to see us off their hands, for it would have 
been a serious matter for them had we remained all 
winter. So, with a strong body of higarrics and a 
number of ponies and cows, we started at nine in the 
morning. The open valley presented a most lovely 



ZANSKAR. 271 



scene. Pure white snow rose up on icither side of it 
nearly from the river to the tops of the high mountains, 
dazzhng- in the sunlight. Above, there was a clear, 
brilliant, blue sky, unspotted by any cloud or fleck of 
mist, but with great eagles occasionally flitting across 
it. Close to the river the snow had melted, of was 
melting from the grass, displaying beautiful autumn 
flowers which had been uninjured by it ; the motsture 
on these flowers and on the grass was sparkling in the 
sunlight. Every breath of the pure keen air was ex- 
hilarating ; and for music we had the gush of snow- 
rivulets, and the piping of innumerable large marmots, 
which came out of their holes on the sides of the valley, 
and whistled to each other. It v/as more like an Alpine 
scene in spring than in autumn, and reminded me of 
Beattie's lines describing the outbreak of a Lapland 
spring : — 

" Thus on the chill Lapponian's dreary land, 
For many a long month lost in snow profoimd, 
When Sol from Cancer heiids the seasons bland, 
And in their northern cave the storms are bound. 
From silent mountains, straiglit, with startling sound. 
Torrents are hurled ; green hills emerge ; and, lo ! 
The trees with foliage, cliffs with flowers are crowned, 
Pure rills through vales of verdure warbling flow." 

On reaching the last village, called Abring, it was 
determined not to stay there, but to camp as high up 
on the pass as we could reach before nightfall, in order 
to have the whole of the next day for getting over the 
deep snow with which its summit was covered. On 
ascending from the larger valley, we passed through a 
number of picturesque small vales, and then got on a 
more open track, on one side of which, where there were 
some birch-bushes, we camped at eve. My tent had to 
be pitched on snow; and I may say that for the next 



272 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

seven days, or until I reached Dras, I was very little off 
that substance ; and for six nights my tent was either 
pitched on snow, or on ground which had been swept 
clear of it for the purpose. At this camp on the 
Pense-la, darkness came on (there being only a crescent 
moon in the early morning) before our preparations for 
the night were concluded. My thermometer sank to 
22°, and there was something solemn suggested on 
looking into the darkness and along the great snowy 
wastes. My bigarries were very much afraid of bears, 
saying that the place was haunted by them ; but none 
appeared. 

Starting early next morning, we passed through seve- 
ral miles of thick brushwood, chiefly birch and willow, 
just before we approached the col of the Pense-la Pass. 
A great glacier flowed over it, and for some way our 
ascent lay up the rocky slopes to the right side of this 
ice-stream ; but that was tedious work, and when we got 
up a certain distance, and the snow was thick enough to 
support us, we moved on to the glacier itself, and so 
made the remainder of the ascent. The fall of snow 
here had been tremendous. I probed in vain with my 
seven feet long alpenstock to strike the ice beneath ; but 
every now and then a crevasse, too large to be bridged 
by the snow, showed the nature of the ground we were 
on. I fancy this was the most dangerous ground J rode 
over in all the Himaliya, for the snow over a crevasse 
might have given way beneath a horse and his rider; 
but several of the Zanskar men were riding and did not 
dismount, so I was fain to trust to this local knowledge, 
though I did not put any confidence in it. Not far from 
the top of the pass we came upon a beautiful little lake 
in the glacier, sunk within walls of blue ice, and frozen, 
but with the snow which had fallen and the upper ice of 
its surface all melted ; for by this time the power of 



ZANSKAR. 273 



the sunbeams in the rarefied atmosphere, and of their 
reflection from the vast sheets of pure white snow, was 
something trefnendous. I had on blue goggles to pro- 
tect my &yQ?>* and a double musllu veil over my face, 
yet all the skin on my face was destro\'ed. After cross- 
ing this pass, my countenance became very much like 
an over-roasted leg of mutton ; and as to my hands, the 
mere sight of them would have made a New Zealander's 
teeth water. On my Indian servants the only effect was 
to blacken their faces, and make their eyes bloodshot. 
The top of the Pense-la is only 14,440 feet high, but it 
took us a long time to reach it, our horses sinking up to 
their girths in the snow at almost every step, and the 
leader having to be frequently changed. We have been 
told to pray that our flight should not be in the winter ; 
and certainly in a Himaliyan winter it would not be 
possible to fly either quickly or far without the wings of 
eagles. The deep dark blue of the heavens above con- 
trasted with the perfect and dazzling whiteness of the 
earthly scene around. The uniformity of colour in this 
exquisite scene excited no sense of monotony ; and, 
looking on the beautiful garment of snow which covered 
the mountains and glaciers, but did not conceal their 
forms, one might well exclaim — 

'* It seems the Eternal Soul is clothed in thee 
With purer robes than those of flesh and blood." 

Especially striking was the icy spire of one of the two 
Akun (the Ser and Mer) peaks, the highest of the 
Western Himaliya, which rose up before us in Suru to 



* There" was another use to which I found goggles could be put. Tibetan 
mastiffs were afraid of them. The fiercest dog in the Himaliya will skulk 
away terrified if you walk up to it quietly in perfect silence v>'itli a pair of 
dark-coloured goggles on, and as if you meditated some villany ; but to 
utter a word goes far to break the spell. 



274 THE ABODE OF SNO IV. 

the height of 23,477 feet. I did not get another glimpse 
of it ; but from this side it appeared to be purely a spire 
of glittering ice, no rock whatever being visible, and the 
sky was — 

" Its own calm home, its crystal shrine, 
Its habitaticn from eternity." 

But instead of attempting further description, let me 
quote an older traveller, and give Hiouen Tsang's 
description of what he beheld on the Musur Dabaghan 
mountain as applicable to what I saw from, and expe- 
rienced on, the Pense-la, and still more especially on the 
Shinkal : — " The top of the mountain rises to the sk\'. 
Since the beginning of the world the snow has been 
accumulating, and is now transformed into vast masses 
of ice, which never melt either in spring or summer. 
Hard and brilliant sheets of snow are spread out till they 
are lost in the infinite and mingle with the clouds. If 
one looks at them, the eyes are dazzled by the splendour. 
Frozen peaks hang, down over both sides of the path 
some hundred feet high and twenty or thirty feet thick. 
It is not without difficulty or danger that the traveller 
can clear them or climb over them. Besides, there are 
squalls of wind and tornadoes of snow which attack the 
pilgrims. Even with double shoes and with thick furs 
one cannot help trembling and shivering." 

In front of us immense sheets of snow stretched 
steeply into a narrow valle}% and down one of these we 
pkmged in a slanting direction. It was too late to reach 
the neighbourhood of any human habitations that night ; 
but we descended the valley for several miles till we 
came to brushwood and a comparatively warm camping- 
spot, well satisfied at having got over the Pense-la with- 
out a single accident. Where I was to go next, however, 
was a matter of some anxiety ; for here the elevated 
valley theory began to break down, and we were in front 



ZANSKAR. 27S 



of a confused congeries of mountains, which must be 
difficult enough to cross at any time, but tenfold so 
after such a snowstorm as had just swept over the 
Himaliya. I felt especially uneasy about those unknown 
places, of which Mr Heyde had said, "they might be a 
little difficult to get over," From this point where we 
now were, I had proposed to go, in a south-westerly 
direction, over the Chiling Pass to Petgam in Maru Ward- 
wan, from whence it would not have been difficult to 
reach Islamabad in the south of Kashmir ; but the Zans- 
kar men declared that there was no such pass, no pas- 
sage in that direction ; and it was at least clearly evi- 
dent that the habitationless villages leading that way 
were so blocked up with prodigious masses of snow, 
that they had become quite impracticable till next 
summer. I was thus compelled to proceed north\^"^.rds, 
and to strike the road from Leh to Kashmir, and camped 
that day at a small village near to the great Kingdom 
Gonpa. I was permitted to enter and examine this 
monastery, but must reserve an account of it. From 
there it took me three easy marches through beautiful 
open valleys to reach the village and fort of Suru. 
The first two days were over uninhabited ground ; and 
we camped the first night at Gulmatongo, where there 
are some huts occupied by herdsmen in summer. This 
place is the most advanced post in that direction of the 
Tibetan-speaking people and of the Lama religion; for 
the village of Parkatze, where we camped next night, is 
inhabited chiefly by Kashmiri Mohammedans, and at 
Suru there is a Kashmiri Thanadar and a military force. 
In these valleys there are immense numbers of large 
marmots, called pia by the Tibetans, from the peculiar 
sound they make. We shot several of them, and found 
their brown fur to be very soft and thick. There was no 
difficulty in shooting them, but some in gaining posses- 



276 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

sion of them, for they were always close to the entrance 
of their holes, and escaped down these unless killed out- 
right. The people do not eat them, considering them to 
be a species of rat ; and though the skins are valued, this 
animal does not seein to be hunted. The skins I procured 
disappeared at Suru, the theft being laid to the charge of 
a dog ; and though half my effects were carried in open 
kiltas, this was the only loss I experienced on my long 
journey, with the exception of a tin of bacon which dis- 
appeared in Lahaul, and which also was debited to a 
canine thief. The Himaliyan marmots were larger than 
hares, though proportionably shorter in the body. They 
were so fat at this season that they could only waddle, 
having fed themselves up on the grass of summer in pre- 
paration for their long hybernation in winter. They 
undoubtedly communicate with one another by their 
shrill cries, and have a curiously intelligent air as they 
sit watching and piping at the mouth of their subter- 
ranean abodes. The marmot has a peculiar interest as 
one of the unchanged survivors of that period when 
the megatherium, the sivatherium, and the other great 
animals whose fossil remains are found in the Siwalick 
range, were roaming over the Himali}'as, or over the 
region where these now rise. 

Shortly before reaching Suru we hkd to leave the bed 
of the Suru river, which takes its rise near Gulmatongo, 
and had to make a detour and considerable ascent. The 
cause of this was an enormous glacier, which came down 
into the river on the opposite (the left) bank, and de- 
flected the stream from its course. Splendid walls of 
ice were thus exposed, and here also there is likely to 
be a cataclysm ere long. Suru is only a dependency of 
Kashmir, and there were more snow-covered mountain- 
ranges to be crossed before I could repose in the Valley 
of Flowers ; but at this place I had fairly passed out of 



ZANSKAR. 277 



the Tibetan region, and without, so far as I am aware, 
having become either a Lama or a Bodhisavata. I may 
say that, while it has unrivalled scenery, its people also 
are interesting, and. manage wonderfully well with their 
hard and trying life. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

KASHMIR. 

Almost every one longs, and many hope, to see the 
beautiful Vale of Kashmir. Probably no region of the 
earth is so well known to the eye of imagination, or so 
readily suggests the idea of a terrestrial Paradise. So 
far from having been disappointed with the reality, or 
having experienced any cause for wishing that I had 
left Kashmir unvisited, I can most sincerely say that 
the beautiful reality excels the somewhat vague poetic 
vision which has been associated with the name. But 
Kashmir is rather a difficult country to get at, espe- 
cially when you come down upon it from behind, by 
way of Zanskar and Suru. According to tradition, it 
was formerly the Garden of Eden ; and one is very well 
disposed to accept that theory when trying to get into 
it from the north or north-west. Most people go up 
to it from the plains of India by one of the four 
authorised routes ; but T have a habit of getting into 
places by some quite unusual way, and did so in this 
instance. 

From Suru to Kartse and Sankii, a day's journey, the . 
road was not bad, except at one 'place, where I had 
to ride high up the mountains in order to find a path 
possible for ponies, and at another where the path was 
so narrow, running athwart precipices and nearly pre- 
cipitous slopes of shingle, that a man whom I met 
leading his pony along it, had to take his steed back 
for more than a mile before the two ponies could pass 



KASHMIR. 279. 



each other. At Sanku there was a fine grove of trees 
for a camping-ground, giving promise of a more genial 
chme, though there was snow lying under the trees ; 
and the way from Sanku to Omba, up the valley of the 
Nakpo Chu, was tolerably easy ; but after leaving Omba 
I did come upon some places which were " a little diffi- 
cult to get over." Unfortunately I had no proper map 
of that part of the country ; and, starting early from 
Sanku, we reached the mountain village of Omba at 
half-past ten in the morning. That seemed rather a 
short da}''s journey, so I asked one of the coolies, who 
spoke a little Hindusthani, how far it was from Omba to 
Dras, and he said it was the same distance as we had 
come from Sanku to Omba, and further illustrated his 
meaning by grasping my alpenstock by the middle, and 
indicating the two halfs of it as illustrations of the equal 
length of the two distances. When I afterwards re- 
proached this man for the difficulty into which he had 
led us, he answered, with true Kashmirian effrontery, 
that he had said- nothing of the kind ; that it was a 
Dras-ivallaJi, a fellow from Dras, who, he alleged, had 
passed at the time, that had said so. But no one 
objected to our going on, and all the bigarrics showed 
a remarkable alacrity in starting. What on earth their 
motive was, I cannot say positively. Perhaps they 
really wished to get on to Dras that day, from fear 
of being cut off from their homes by a fall of snow; 
but it is more probable that they were afraid of p-oino- 
there, and proposed to give me the slip among the 
mountains ; for about this time the envoy of the Yarkund 
ruler was expected to be coming up the Dras valley, on 
his return from a visit to Constantinople, and immense 
numbers of Kashniir coolies were being impressed in 
order to take his European purchases up to Leh. At all 
events, there must have been some secret motive for 



28o THE ABODE OF SNUW. 

their hurrying me into, the injuripus task of undertaking 
in one day what ought properly to have been a three 
days' journey. I was ignorant of the fact when among 
those mountains; but find now, that in 1822, Moorcroft 
went over the same road, and he took three days to it, 
though it was July, and he started from above Sanku^ 
and on the third day did not reach Dras, but only the 
hamlet opposite it, which I reached in one day from 
Sanku ; so it can be understood how tremendous was 
the day's journey, and how great the mistake into which 
I was led. 

So we started from Omba, and began to ascend a 
hill. I do not say "a hill" sarcastically, because had I 
seen, soon after starting, what a mountain this hill was, 
I should immediately have turned back and camped at 
Omba ; but, though immense mountains rose before us, 
they did so in such a manner as to make it appear likely 
that a low pass ran between them. It was not until we had 
laboured up steadily for about a couple of hours that the 
horrible truth began to dawn upon my mind that there 
was no pass, and that it was up the face of one of those 
gigantic mountains that we were now going by a cork- 
screw path. There really appeared to be no end either 
of the path or of the mountain, and we soon got involved 
in large patches of snow, though this was the south side 
of " the pass." It was like going up, not to Kashmir, 
but to heaven ; and I should even then have returned to 
Omba but for the consideration that the bigarries were 
from Sanku, and that it might be difficult to supply 
their places or to get them to go on next day. Mean- 
while they began to show symptoms of distress, and two 
or three attempted to leave their luggage and bolt. One 
man nearly effected his escape by getting leave to go 
down a little way to a snow rivulet to drink. Whenever 
he got there, he took to his heels down the pass, but was 



KASHMIR. 281 



cut off and forced to come back by one of my servants, 
who had fallen behind and was coming up oh horse- 
back. 

However, I ignorantly thought that if we got to the 
top of this tremendous Omba-Ia, or Omba Pass (which 
was as steep, and must have been as high, as the Kung- 
ma, which leads from Namgea over into Chinese Tibet), 
it would be all right ; and so I encouraged the bigarries to 
labour upwards. There was deep snow at the summit ; 
and looking down the northern side, an immense sheet 
of snow was seen stretching down into a desolate valley, 
and broken only by the track of a party of Baltis we 
met at the summit. One of these was crying bitterly, 
and on inquiring into the cause, I found he had been 
struck with snow-blindness by the reflection of the sun. 
I had scarcely time to look round, and the dazzling 
whiteness was too much for my eyes, even when pro- 
tected by blue glass; but Moorcroft says that when he 
crossed it, and when there must have been much less 
snow, " The view from the crest presented a majestic 
line of snow-covered mountain-tops, very little above the 
level of the pass, extending round a circle of at least 
twenty miles in diameter. The uniformity of the ridges 
was very remarkable ; for although broken with peak 
and gorge, yet there were no single mountains or moun- 
tain-chains that towered ambitiously above their fel- 
lows." 

It took us a long time to get down that snow-slope, 
and for riders it was rather ticklish work. On reaching 
the desolate valley, where there were only a few stunted 
bushes, I thought it high time to refresh the inner man, 
fanc}dng we had only to go down this valley a little way 
to come upon Dras and human habitations ; but I had 
only taken a few mouthfuls when I learned that it led 
nowhere, that it had no human habitations, and that, in 



282 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



order to reach Dras, we should have to cross another 
snowy range, possibly higher than the one we had just 
got over with so much difficulty. The effect upon me of 
this piece of information was precisely like that of a hot 
potato. On inquiry, I found that the score of coolies 
had little more than a pound of flour among them, and 
that my servants were in almost as bad a predicament. 
I had told the latter always to be provided for such an 
emergency ; but they excused themselves on the ground 
that they had supposed we had got out of the high 
mountains. I myself could have camped with perfect 
comfort, having plenty of provisions and clothing ; but 
the bigarries had no sufficient means of protecting them- 
selves from the cold, besides being destitute of provi- 
sions. The situation was an extremely difficult one, 
because by tliis time it was past three o'clock ; the sun 
was completely shaded off the valley by the mountains 
around; an intense cold began to make us all shiver; 
and to attempt a snowy pass at that hour in the after- 
noon, after having been almost continuously travelling 
from before seven in the morning, was a distasteful and 
exceedingly hazardous thing to do. 

On the other hand, it occurred to me very forcibly 
that if I did camp there I should find in the morning 
that all the coolies had disappeared. It could hardly 
be supposed that they had led me into this position 
merely for the pleasure of doing three days' journey in 
one, or of themselves spending a night, unprotected from 
the cold and with empty stomachs, in the Twajeh val- 
ley. The most rational supposition was that they wanted 
to give me the slip, and so I determined to proceed at 
all risks. It was most fortunate I did so, because next 
day a tremendous snowstorm fell over these mountains. 
If we had remained in this elevated valley all night, we 
certainly could not have got over to Dras the next day, 



KASHMIR. 283 

or for several days, and it is almost as certain that we 
could not have got back to Omba. The most of the 
party must have perished ; and hence I really was 
indebted to the imaginary Dr'as-wallah, though from 
the exposure of that evening I suffered for months. 

But having determined to proceed, it was absolutely 
necessary to secure that the bearers of my baggage 
should do so likewise. Fortunately all my servants 
were mounted, so I broke up our party into three divi- 
sions, in order that the coolies might more easily be kept 
in hand. I sent on my most valuable articles in front, 
carried by coolies under charge of the violent Chota 
Khan, and a sowar, or trooper, who had been sent with 
me by the Thanadar of Suru. Keeping the sharp boy 
Nurdass with me, I took the most refractory of the men 
under my own charge, and made Phooleyram and Silas 
with his gun look after a small section in the rear. My 
servants saw as well as I did the necessity for the most 
decided action, and we soon reached the foot of the 
second range. Here the man who had before nearly 
succeeded in running away gave me some trouble by 
making a similar attempt, and afterwards by lying 
down and refusing to budge an inch farther ; so I had to 
show him that such conduct might involve worse evils 
than those of going on. I was not at all afraid of their 
running away once I got them well over the summit of 
this infernal second snowy range, because from that 
point they could hardly have reached Omba on empty 
stomachs ; so my great anxiety was to get them over 
the brow of the range before dark, so long as there was 
light enough for us to keep them in hand. By various 
kinds of encouragement I managed to push them up 
that lofty mountain at really an astonishing rate, con- 
sidering the ground they had got over that day ; and 
when I saw men flagging really from want of strength, 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



I made them hold on by our horses' tails, which, in 
making an ascent, is very nearly as good as riding on 
the animal itself. 

The sun had disappeared, and the light on the snow 
we were crossing had become pale, when I got my party 
up to the summit of this great mountain-ridge. But 
instead of a descent to Dras, I saw before me, with 
dismay, a large valley of snow, athwart which ran the 
tracks of Chota Khan's party, rising up into a higher 
mountain-range beyond. It was in fact a sort of double 
pass we were on ; and though the descent between the 
two ridges was not great, yet it was sufficiently formi- 
dable, and the distance between them was enough to 
alarm one in the circumstances. How weird that scene 
was in the grey fading light ! The cold made me shiver 
to the bone ; but there was something in the scene 
also to make one shiver, so cold-looking was it, so 
death-like. A crescent ^moon gleamed in the sky with 
exceeding brightness, and the whole disc of the moon 
was distinctly visible, but its light was insufficient to 
dispel the darkness which seemed to be creeping up 
from the valley over the wastes of snow. We had 
quite sufficient light, however, to take us over the 
second summit of the pass, but I suffered much from 
the cold, being insufficiently clad, having had no ex- 
pectation whatever of being up about i6,coo feet at 
siich an hour. It was with a feeling of great relief that 
I learned that we had now only to descend, and had no 
more snowy ridges to surmount on our terrible way 
to Dras. 

But how to descend } That was the question which 
immediately forced itself upon me. I was incliiled to 
stick to the pony so long as I did not find it upon 
the top of me; and fortunately it was a wonderful 
steed, equalled only by that of the Shigri valley. But 



KASHMIR. 285 



by this time the night had become dark, the crescent 
moon was disappearing behind the mountains, and 
there were long slopes of snow to be traversed. Here 
the pony absolutely refused to move a step without my 
allowing it to put its nose down close to the snow ; and 
though, when it was in such an attitude on a steep 
slope, there was considerable difficulty in keeping on 
its back, I found it could be trusted to go down safely 
in that way ; and carry me down it did, until we got 
into a deep and excessively dark gorge, where it was 
impossible to ride. It was so dark here that we could 
hardly see a step before us, and I scrambled through in 
a manner that I could hardly have believed possible. 
Our way lay along the bed of a stream full of great 
stones, over which we often fell. Then we would break 
through ice into pools of ice-cold water, and come 
to falls where we had to let one man down and descend 
upon his shoulders. The pony meanwhile followed us, 
obedient to the voice of its owner; and it seemed to 
have more power of finding its way than we possessed, 
for it got round descents which it could hardly have 
jumped, and which we could find no way of avoiding. 

After that frightful passage we came on more gentle 
and easy descents, but it was with intense relief that I 
saw the flames of a large fire of thorn-bushes which 
Chota Khan and the sowar had kindled for our guid- 
ance at a hamlet opposite to Dras, on our side of the 
river. We gladly turned our steps in that direction, 
and stayed there for the night, the men of the hamlet 
assisting in setting up my tent. It was past ten before 
I reached this place, so that we had been above fifteen 
hours almost continuously travelling. The party under 
Silas came in soon, but he himself did not turn up for 
nearly an hour, and when he arrived he was in a very 
excited state. After dark he got separated from his 



286 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

party, and came down that awful gorge in company 
with one old coolie, of whose language he understood 
only. the single word bah'i, or "hear;" and no doubt 
there were likely enough to be bears about. This 
was clearly not treatment such as a Bombay butler 
had a right to expect ; but a little cocoa had a bene- 
ficial effect upon him ; and whenever my tent was set 
up I went to sleep in spite of the wind, which now 
began to blow violently, accompanied by rain, and 
was so worn out that I did not rise, or almost awake, 
till one o'clock next day. 

The morning was wet and windy ; thick clouds 
covered the mountains which we had descended, and as 
they lifted occasionally I saw that heavy snow had 
fallen. In such weather, and being in a fatigued 
condition, it was quite sufficient to move from our 
exposed camp only two miles to the Thana of Dras, 
where there was the shelter of trees and of walls. The 
Thanader there spoke of the snow being forty feet 
deep in winter, though the height is little over 10,000 
feet, and he seemed a highly respectable old officer. 
His quarters are detached some way from the large 
fort where the most of his troops are stationed, and 
I suppose these latter are not much needed now, unless 
for purposes of oppression. Dras is a dependency of 
Kashmir, being one of the provinces which have been 
added to it by Mohammedan force and Hindu fraud, 
which do not fail in the long run to break the shield 
of the mountaineers. This valley is sometimes called 
Himbab, or tlie " Source of Snow," which must be 
a very suitable name for it, if that prodigious story 
about the forty feet of snow be true. 

There remains, however, another pass to be crossed 
before we get into the valleys of even Upper Kashmir.^ 
A very cold and wet day's journey took us up 



KASHMIR. 287 



the Dras river to the miserable hamlet of Mataan, 
where, before getting- out of my tent next morning, 
I learned that the Yarkund envoy could not be far 
off. I heard a loud voice crying out, Cajfe, baiiao, 
cJia banao — " Make coffee, make tea," — followed by 
whack, whack, as the blows of a stick descended 
upon a man's back. This turned out to be the Wuzeer's 
Wuzeer, or the envoy's avant-conrier, who was pushing 
on ahead of his patron, and preparing the way. Like 
many gentlemen's gentlemen, he was extremely indig- 
nant at the comforts of life not being ready for him. I 
do not believe that this miserable hamlet of Mataan 
could have turned out a cup of tea or coffee to save the 
lives of all its„ inhabitants ; and it seemed to me that 
the Wuzeer's Wuzeer administered the stick to the entire 
population of that unhapp)^ village. When I came out 
of my tent, I had a momentary glimpse of a little man 
in something like a red dressing-gown, dancing furiously 
round a very big man, and hitting him with a long stick ; 
but, on my appearance, he suddenly retired into his di'di. 
After that, on the six marches down to Srinagar, I never 
found myself clear of the retinue of the Yarkund envoy : 
for the whole road down Avas covered with men carrying 
his things; and tents, guarded by Kashmir soldiers, had 
been pitched for him at various places. There were said 
to be 3000 coolies employed in carrying up himself and 
the effects he had purchased in Europe. I cannot say 
as to the exact number; but really there seemed to be 
no end of them, and they came from all parts of Kash- 
m.ir. They were to be met with at almost every turn- 
ing, and in very various positions. At one moment I 
would find half-a-dozen of them resting to groan under 
the weight of a 24-pounder gun, wrapped in straw, while 
a sepoy of the Kashmir Maharajah threatened them 
with his stick, or even with his sword : half-an-hour after 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



another party of them were pulling down walnuts from 
some grand old tree, while some grand-looking old dame 
(for the Kashmir women who survive to old age have an 
aristocratic appearance, which would attract attention 
in the courts of Europe) was looking on the .spoliation 
of her property, or on that of her grandchild, now with 
a melancholy dignity, which might have become the 
tragic muse, and anon with shrieks and imprecations 
which might have excited the envy of a moenad. Again, 
I would come across three or four hundred of them at 
sundown, kneeling down at prayer, with their faces 
turned towards what was supposed to be the direction 
of Mecca, but which really was more in the direction of 
the North Pole Star than of anything else. At another 
time a party of them would halt as I came by, support 
their burdens on the short poles which they carried for 
that purpose, and some Hindusthani spokesman among 
them would say to me, " O Protector of the Poor!" 
{GiLi'ib Parwdr, pronounced Guriptir), " you have been 
up among these snowy mountains — shall we ever see 
our house-roofs again ? " They all had the same story 
as to their monetary position. Each man had got five 
rupees (I do not know whether small chilki, Kashmir 
rupees, or British, but should fancy the former) in order 
to purchase rice for the journey ; but their further ex- 
pectations on the subject of pay were of the most de- 
sponding kind, anH the only anxiety they showed was, 
not as to how they were to get back again, but as to 
vi-hether it would be at all possible for them ever to get 
back again. I must have missed the Yarkund envoy 
himself about Ganderbahl, a day's march from Srina- 
gar ; but shortly before getting to Ganderbahl I came 
across three of his retinue, who puzzled me a little. It 
was very wet and very muddy, when I suddenly came 
across three riders in black European waterproofs, one 



KASHMIR. 289 



of whom said to me — "Bones sore, Musliu ! " After 
being for months up in the Himalij^a, one is unaccustomed 
to being accosted in a European language ; and the 
matter was comph'cated by the fact that rny bones were 
sore at the time, and most confoundedly so, from the 
combined effect of that evening on the Omba-la and of 
a fall. Hence it was that I had fairly passed the three 
curious riders before it at all occurred to my mind that the 
salutation was " Bon soir, Monsieur." They were doubt- 
less Frenchified Turks, whom the envoy had brought 
from Constantinople ; but they had scarcely any ground 
to expect that their peculiar French would be recog- 
nised, on the moment, in one of the upper valleys of 
Kashmir. 

But I have not yet got into even the outskirts of the 
Garden of Eden. The Zoji-la had to be crossed ; and 
though it is a very easy pass, and set down by the Tri- 
gonometrical Survey as only 11,300 feet high, yet I have 
heard, and suspect, that a mistake has been made there, 
and that nearly a thousand feet might have been added 
to it. Let Major Montgoraerie's m'ap be compared with 
the sheets of the Trigonometrical Survey, on which it 
must be supposed to be based, and discrepancies will be 
found. The Trigonometrical Survey has achieved more 
than would allow of absolute accuracy in all its details ; 
but, considering the means at its command, it has done 
wonders. Still, though the Zoji Pass may be higher 
than it has been set down, yet it seems almost child's- 
play to the traveller from Zanskar and the Omba-la. 
Though it seemed to me nothing after what I had gone 
through, yet this pass must have a formidable appear- 
ance to travellers coming upon it from below, judging 
from the following description of it by Dr Henderson, 
the ornithologist of the first of Sir Thomas Forsyth's 
missions to Yarkund : — 

T 



290 THE ABODE OF SNO W. 

" The road we had ascended was in many places rather trying to tlie 
nerves, being very steep, and sometiines consi'^ting merely of a platform of 
brushwood attached to the face of the precipice. This road, owing to its 
steejDness, is quite impassable for baggage animals after a fall of snow, and 
it is then necessary to wait at Baltal until th-e snow has melted, or to follow 
the stream up a very nan-ow rocky gorge, with precipices of from 500 to 
1000 feet on either side. This gorge, however, is only practicable when filled 
up by snow to about fifty feet in depth, as it usually is early in the season: 
it is then the usual route ; and at that season, in order to avoitl the avalan- 
ches, it is necessary to start at night and get over the pass before sunrise. 
Avalanches do not fall until late in the day, after the sun begins to melt 
the snow." — Lahore to Yarkund : London, 1873. 

I do not think the road has been improved since Dr 
Henderson passed over it ; and now that I think of it, I 
rememlDer that there was something like the brushwood 
platforms of which he speaks. The great interest of it is 
that it leads suddenly down upon the beautiful wooded 
scenery of Kashmir. After months of the sterile, almost 
treeless Tibetan provinces, the contrast was very strik- 
ing, and I could not but revel in the beauty and glory 
of the vegetation ; but even to one who had come upon 
it from below the scene would have been very strik- 
ing. There was a large and lively encampment at the 
foot of the pass, with tents prepared for the Yarkund 
envoy, and a number of Kashmir officers and soldiers; 
but I pushed on beyond that, and camped in solitude 
close to the Sind river, just beneath the Panjtarne 
valley, which leads up towards the caves of Aniber- 
neth, a celebrated place for Hindu pilgrimage. This 
place is called Baltal, but it has no human habita- 
tions. Smooth green meadows, carpet-like and em- 
broidered with flowers, extended to the silvery stream, 
above which there was the most varied luxuriance of 
foliage, the lower mountains being most richly clothed 
with woods of many and beautiful colours. It was late 
autumn, and the trees were in their greatest variety of 
colour ; but hardly a leaf seemed to have fallen. The 
idark green of the pines contrasted beautifully with the 



KASHMIR. 291 



delicate orange of the birches, because there were inter- 
mingling tints of brown and saffron. Great masses of 
foliage were succeeded by solitary pines, which had 
found a footing high up the precipitous crags. 

x\nd all this was combined with peaks and slopes of 
pure white snow. Aiguilles of dark rock rose out of 
beds of snow, but their faces were powdered with the 
same element Glaciers and long beds of snow ran 
clown the valleys, and the upper vegetation had snow 
for its bed. The effect of sunset upon this scene was 
wonderful ; for the colours it displa3-'ed were both 
heightened and more harmoniously blended. The 
golden light of eve brought out the warm tints of 
the forest ; but the glow of the reddish-brown pre- 
cipices, and the rosy light upon the snowy slopes 
and peaks, were too soon succeeded by the cold grey 
of evening. At first, however, the wondrous scene was 
still visible in a quarter-moon's silvery light, in which 
the Panjtarne valley was in truth — 

" A wild romantic chasm, that slanted 
Down the sweet hill athwart a cedar cover— 
A savage place, as holy and enchanted 
As e'er beneath the waning moon was haunted 
By woman wailing for her demon-lover." 

The demon-lovers to be met with in that wild valley are 
bears, which are in abundance ; and a more delightful 
place for a hunter to spend a month in could hardly be 
invented ; but he would have to depend on his rifle for 
supplies, or have them sent up from many miles down 
the Sind valley. 

The remainder of my journey down this latter valley 
to the great valley or small plain of Kashmir was de- 
lightful. A good deal of rain fell, but that made one 
appreciate the great trees all the more, for the rain was 
not continuous, and was mingled with sunshine. At 



292 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

times, during the season when I saw it, this "inlanc! 
depth " is " roaring like the sea ; " 

" While trees, dim-seen, in frenzied numbers tear 
The lingering remnant of tlieir yellow hair ;" 

but soon after it is bathed in perfect peace and melloAV 
sunlight. The air was soft and balmy ; but, at this 
transfer from September to October, it was agreeably 
cool even to a traveller from the abodes and sources of 
snow. As Ave descended, the pine-forests were confined 
to the mountain-slopes; but the lofty deodar began to 
appear in the valley, as afterwards the sycamore, the 
elm, and the horse-chestnut. Round the picturesque 
villages, and even forming considerable woods, there 
were fruit-trees — as the walnut, the chestnut, the peach, 
the apricot, the apple, and the pear.' Large quantities 
of timber (said to be cut recklessly) was in course of 
being floated down the river ; and Avhere the path led 
across it, there were curious wooden bridges, for which it 
was not necessary to dismount. This Sind valley is 
about sixty miles long, and varies in breadth from a few 
hundred yards to about a mile, except at its base, where 
it opens out considerabh\ It is considered to afford 
the best idea of the mingled beauty and grandeur of 
Kashmir scenery ; and when I passed through, its 
appearance was greatly enhanced by the snow, which 
not only covered the mountain tops, but also came 
down into the forests which clothed the mountain- 
sides. The path through it, being part of the great 
road from Kashmir to Central Asia, is kept in tolerable 
repair, and it is very rarely that the rider requires to 
dismount. Anything beyond a walking pace, however, 
is for the most part out of the question. Montgomerie 
divides the journey from Srinagar to Baltal (where I 
camped below the Zoji-la) into six marches, making in 



KASHMIR. 29: 



all sixty-seven miles ; and though two of these marches 
may be done in one day, yet if you are to travel easily 
and enjoy the scenery, one a day is sufficient. The 
easiest double march is from Sonamarg to Gond, and I 
did it in a day with apparent ease on a very poor pony ; 
but the consequence is that I beat my brains in vain in 
order to recall what sort of place Gond was, no distinct 
recollection of it having been left on my mind except of 
a grove of large trees and a roaring fire in front of my 
tent at night. Sonamarg struck me as a very pleasant 
place ; and I had there, in the person of a youthful 
captain from Abbotabad, the pleasure of meeting the 
first European I had seen since leaving Laliaul. We 
dined together, and I found he had come up from 
Srinagar to see Sonamarg, and he spoke witli great 
enthusiasm of a view he had had, from another part of 
Kashmir, of the 26,000-feet mountain Nanga Parbat. 
Marg means a " meadow," and seems to be applied 
specially to elevated meadows ; sona stands for 
"golden:" and this place is a favourite resort, in 
the hot malarious months of July and August, both 
for the Europeans in Kashmir, and for natives of 
rank. The village, being composed of four houses and 
three outlying ones, cannot produce much in the way 
of either coolies or supplies. Its commercial ideas 
may be gathered from the fact that I was here asked 
seven rupees for a pound of tea which was nothing but 
the refuse of tea-chests mixed with all sorts of dirt. In 
the matter of coolies I was independent, for the bigarrics 
who had taken my effects over the Zoji-la were so 
afraid of being impressed for the service^of the Yarkund 
envoy, that they had entreated me to engage them as 
far as Ganderbahl, near the capital, hoping that by the 
time they reached that place the fierce demand for 
coolies might have ceased. 



294 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

At Ganderbahl I was fairly in the great valley of 
Kashmir, and encamped under some enormous chundr 
or sycamore trees ; the girth of one was so great that 
its trunk kept my little mountain-tent quite sheltered 
from the furious blasts. Truly — 

" There was a roaring in the wind all night, 
The rain fell heavily, and fellin floods ;" 

but that gigantic chimdr kept off both wind and rain 
wonderfully. Next day a small but convenient and 
quaint Kashmir boat took me up to Srinagar ; and it 
was delightful to glide up the backwaters of the Jhelam, 
which afforded a highway to the capital. It was the 
commencement and the promise of repose, which I very 
seriously needed, and in a beautiful land. 

As Srinagar, where I stayed for a fortnight, I was the 
guest of the Resident, the amiable and accomplished 
Mr Le Poer Wynne, whose early death has disappointed 
many bright hopes. I had thus every opportunity of 
seeing all that could be seen about the capital, and of 
making myself acquainted with the state of affairs in 
Kashmir. I afterwards went up to Islamabad, Martand, 
Achibal, Vernag, the Rozlii valley, and finally went out 
of Kashmir by way of the Manas and Wular lakes, and 
the lower valley of the Jhelam, so that I saw the most 
interesting places in the country, and all the varieties 
of scenery which it affords.. That country has been so 
often visited and described, that, with one or two 
exceptions, I shall only touch generally upon its 
characteristics. It doubtless owes some of its charm to 
the character of the regions in its neighbourhood. As 
compared with the burning plains of India, the sterile 
steppes of Tibet, and the savage mountains of the Him- 
aliya and of Afghanistan, it presents an astonishing 
and beautiful contrast. After such scenes even a much 



KASHMIR. 295 



more commonplace country might have afforded a good 
deal of the enthusiasm which Kashmir has excited in 
Eastern poetry, and even in common rumour ; but be- 
yond that it has characteristics which give it a distinct 
place among the most pleasing regions of the earth. I 
said to the Maharajah, or ruling Prince of Kashmir, that 
the most beautiful countries I had seen were England, 
Italy, Japan, and Kashmir; and though he did not 
seem to like the remark much, probably from a fear that 
the beauty of the land he governed might make it too 
much an object of desire, yet there was no exaggeration 
in it. Here, at a height of nearly 6000 feet, in a tem- 
perate climate, with abundance of moisture, and yet 
protected by lofty mountains from the fierce continuous 
rains of the Indian south-west monsoon, we have the 
most splendid amphitheatre in the world. A flat oval 
valley about sixty miles long, and from forty in breadth, 
is surrounded by magnificent mountains, which, during 
the greater part of the year, are covered more than half- 
way down with snow, and present vast upland beds 01 
pure white snow. This valley has fine lakes, is inter- 
sected with watercourses, and its land is covered with 
brilliant vegetation, including gigantic trees of the richest 
foliage. And out of this great central valley there rise 
innumerable, long, picturesque mountain-valleys, such 
as that of the Sind river, which I have just described ; 
while above these there are great pine-forests, green 
slopes of grass, glaciers, and snow. Nothing could 
express the general effect better than Moore's famous 
lines on sainted Lebanon — 

" Whose head in wintry grandeur tower% 

And whitens with eternal sleet ; 
While Summer, in a vale of flowers, 
Is sleeping rosy at his feet." 

The great encircling walls of rock and snow contrast 



296 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

grandly with the soft beauty of the scene beneath. The 
snows have a wonderful effect as we look up to them 
through the leafy branches of the immense chundr, elm, 
and poplar trees. They flash gloriously in the morning 
sunlight above the pink mist of the valley-plain ; they 
have a rosy glow in the evening sunlight; and when 
the sunliglit has departed, but ere darkness shrouds 
them, they gleam afar off, with a cold and spectral light, 
as if they belonged to a region where man had never 
trod. The deep black gorges in the mountains have a 
mysterious look. The sun lights up some softer grassy 
ravine or green slope, and tiien displays splintered rocks 
rising in the wildest confusion. Often long lines of 
white clouds lie along the line of' mountain-summits, 
while at other times every white peak and precipice- 
wall is distinctly marked against the deep-blue sky. 
The valley-plain is especially striking in clear mornings 
and evenings, when it lies partly in golden sunlight, 
partly in the shadow of its great hills. 

The green mosaic of the level land is intersected by 
many streams, canals, and lakes, or beautiful reaches of 
river which look like small lakes. The lakes have 
floating islands composed of vei^etation. Besides the 
immense cJnindrs and elms, and the long lines of stately 
poplars, great part of the plain is a garden filled with 
fruits and flowers, and there is almost constant verdure. 

" There eternal summer dwells, 
And west winds, with musky wing, 
About the cedared alleys fling 
Nard and cassia's balmy smells." 

It is a pity that so beautiful a country should not 
have a finer population. At the entrances of the valle\'s, 
looking at the forests, the rich uncultivated lands, and 
the unused water-power, I could not but think of the 
scenes in Ensjland — 



KASHMIR. 297 



" Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride, 
And brighter streams than famed Hydaspes* glide." 

My mind reverted also to the flashing snows of the 
American Sierra Nevada, the dwarf oaks and rich 
fields of wheat, the chubby children, the comely, well- 
dressed women, and the strong stalwart men of Cali- 
fornia. For though the chalets were picturesque enough 
at a little distance, they could not bear a close examina- 
tion ; and there was not much satisfaction to be had in 
contemplating the half-starved, half-naked children, and 
the thin, worn-out-looking women. One could not help 
thinking of the comfortable homey which an Anglo- 
Saxon population would rear in such a land. 

The beauty of the Kashmir women has long been 
famous in the East, but if you want beautiful Kashmiris, 
do not go to Kashmir to look for them. The)' have all 
fine eyes, and "the eyes of Kashmir' have been justly 
celebrated in Eastern poetry; but that is almost the only 
feminine attraction to be found in the country, even 
among th*e dancing-girls and the boat-girls. As to the 
ordinary women, there is too much sad truth in Victor 
Jacquemont's outburst against them — " Know that I 
have never seen anywhere such hideous witches as in, 
Kashmir. [He had not been in Tibet !] The female race 
is remarkably ugly. I speak of women of the common 
ranks — those one sees in the streets and fields — since 
those of a more elevated station pass all their lives shut 
up, and are never seen. It is true that all little girls who 
promise to turn out pretty are sold at eight years of age, 
and carried off into the Panjab and India." I am afraid 
a good deal of that traffic still goes on, notwithstanding 
the law which forbids women and mares to be taken 
out of the country ; and as it has gone on for genera- 

* The Jhelam. 



298 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

tions, it is easily explicable how the women of Kashmir 
should be so ugly. A continuous process of eliminating 
the pretty girls, and leaving the ugly ones to continue 
the race, must lower the standard of beauty. But the 
want of good condition strikes one more painfully in 
Kashmir than the want of beauty. The aquiline noses, 
long chins, and long faces of the women of Kashmir, 
would allow only of a peculiar and rather Jewish style 
of beauty ; but even that is not brought out well by the 
state of their physique ; and I don't suppose the most 
beautiful woman in the Avorld would show to advan- 
tage if she were imperfectly washed, and dressed in the 
ordinary feminine attire of Kashmir — a dirty, whitish 
cotton niglit-gown. 

It is unfortunate for the reputation of Kashmir that 
a sudden death, not entirely free from suspicious cir- 
cumstances, should have befallen three of our country- 
men who had distinguished themselves by exposing the 
abuses existing in the country ; and it is at least remark- 
able that suspicion on the subject should fiave been 
roused by the Kashmiris themselves — that is to say, by 
reports generally current in Srinagar. I allude to Lieu- 
tenant Thorpe, Dr Elms-lie, and MrHayward. The first 
of these gentlemen had published a pamphlet entitled 
"Kashmir Misgovernment ;" and in November 1868, 
when almost all visitors except himself had left Kash- 
mir for the season, he expired suddenly at Srinagar, 
after having walked up the Takht-i-Suliman, a hill which 
rises close to tlie city to the height of a thousand feet. 
Naturally the supposition was that he had been poi- 
soned ; but Surgeon Caley, who happened to be on his 
way down from Ladak, examined the bod}' shortly after 
death, and reported that there had been "rupture of the 
heart." Dr Elmslie was a devoted medical missionary, 
who did an immense deal of good in Kashmir, and had 



KASHMIR. 299 



published a valuable vocabulary of the Kashmiri lan- 
guage ; but he had also published letters complaining of 
the carelessness of the Government in regard to a visi- 
tation of cholera which had carried off large numbers of 
the people, and pointing out that sanitary measures 
might save the lives of thousands every year from small- 
pox and other diseases. The Srinagar rumour was that 
his servants had been offered so much to' poison him 
within the Kashmir territory, and so much more if they 
would do so after he got beyond. Unfortunately Dr 
Elmslie also died rather s\iddenly shortly after he had 
got beyond the Kashmir borders, and, it seems, also of 
heart disease. Mr Hayward had published letters in 
the Indian papers complaining of the conduct of the 
Kashmir troops in Gilgit, and on the borders of Yassin, 
and he somewhat injudiciously returned to that part of 
the world. But I do not attach any importance to the 
gossip of Eastern cities — or of any cities, for that matter ; 
and there has appeared no ground to suppose that his 
death was planned by Kashmir officials, but what befell 
him was very sad. He was on his way to the Pamir 
Steppe, and somewhere about Yassin was in the terri- 
tory of a chief who camped two hundred armed men in 
a wood near his tent. The next day's journey would 
have taken Hayward beyond this chief's border ; and, 
suspecting mischief, he sat up all night writing with 
revolver in hand. Unfortunately, however, in the grey 
of the morning, he lay down to take half an hour's sleep 
before starting; and the chief with his people came 
down on him then, overpowered him, tied his hands be- 
hind his back and took him into the wood. Here, seeing 
preparations made for putting him to death, the unfor- 
tunate traveller offered a ransom for his life ; but his 
captors would not hear of it. They made him kneel 
down, and, while he was offering up a prayer, they 



300 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

hacked off his head after the half-hackuTo- half-sawincj 
way they have of kiUiiij- sheep in the Himaliya. How 
this story was gathered has been told in the JoiLrnal 
of the Royal Geographical Society, and tolerably correct 
accounts of such incidents get abroad in even the wildest 
parts of the East, The moral of it is, that one ought to 
avoid Yassin, rather tha,n that it is dangerous to abuse 
the Kashmir Government ; but it is no wonder that the 
three cases just mentioned should have given rise to 
suspicions when we consider the character of the people, 
and the powerful motives which the native officials have 
in preventing any outcry being raised against them. 

Many hundred years ago. the Chinese traveller Fa- 
Hain spoke of the people of Kashmir as being of a 
peculiarly bad character, Ranji't Singh said to Sir 
Alexander Burnes, " All the people I send into Kash- 
mir turn out rascals {Jianiinzadd) ; there is too much 
pleasure and enjoyment in that country." Moorcroft 
described them as " selfish, superstitious, ignorant, sup- 
ple, intriguing, dishonest, and false." A more recent 
traveller, Dr A. L. Adams, the naturalist, says of them, 
" Everywhere in Cashmere you see the inhabitants indo- 
lent to a degree, filthy in tlieir habits, mean, cowardly, 
shabby, irresolute, and indifferent to all ideas of reform or 
progress." Their name has become a byword through- 
out a great part of all Asia. Even where there are so 
many deceitful nations, they have obtained a bad pre- 
eminence. According to a well-known Persian saying, 
"you will never experience anything but sorrow and 
anxiety from the Kashmiri." When these people got 
this bad name is lost in antiquity, and so is the period 
when they first passed into the unfortunate circumstances 
which have demoralised them. They are, however, not 
unattractive, being an intellectual people, and charac- 
terised by great ingenuity and sprightliness. I cannot 



KASHMIR. 301 



deny the truth of the accusations brought against them, 
yet I could not but pity them and sympathise witli 
them. I tliink also that tliey have the elements of what, 
in more fortunate circumstances, might be a very fine 
character ; but dwelling in a fertile and beautiful valley, 
surrounded by hardy and warlike tribes, they have for 
ages been subject to that oppression which destro}'s 
national hope and virtue. Their population has hardly 
been large enough to afford effectual resistance to the 
opposing forces, though, unless there had been a large 
element of weakness in their character, they might surely 
have held their passes ; and, at the same time, they were 
too many in numbers to retire, for a time, before in- 
vaders, from their fertile lands into their mountain fast- 
nesses. As it is, they are abominably used and they 
use each other abominably. It seemed to me that every 
common soldier of the Maharajah of Kashmir felt himself 
entitled to beat and plunder the country people ; but I 
noticed that my boatmen tried to do the same whea 
they thought they were unobserved by me. The Maha- 
rajah himself holds an open court on one day every week, 
at which the mieanest peasant is nominally free to make 
his complaint, even if it be against the highest officials ; 
but I was told, by very good authority, that this source 
of redress was practically inoperative, not because the 
Maharajah was .unwilling to do justice, but because there 
was such a system of terrorism that the common people 
dared not come forward to complain. Great improve- 
iftents have already been made under the present ruler 
of Kashmir; but he is one man among many, and when 
a corrupt and oppressive officialdom has existed in a 
country for ages, it cannot be rooted out in one reign. 

Our position in Kashmir is a very curious one, and 
reflects little credit upon the British name. By the 
Treaty of Amritsar, concluded in 1846 after the first 



302 THE ABODE OF SNO W. 

Panjab war, we actually sold the country to Golab 
Singh, the father of the present Maharajah, for seventy- 
five lacs of rupees, or rather less than three-quarters 
of a million sterling ; but so little welcome Avas he, 
that the first troops he sent up were driven out of the 
country, and lT,e was enabled to establish himself in it 
only by claiming the assistance of the Indian Govern- 
ment, and getting from it an order that the existing 
Governor was to yield obedience to the new sovereign, 
or to consider himself an enemy of the British Govern- 
ment. No doubt we wanted the money very much at 
the time, miserable sum as it was, and only double the 
revenue which Ranji't Singh drew in one year from 
Kashmir. It is possible, too, that there may have been 
some policy in thus making a friend of one of the chiefs 
of the Khalsa ; but the transaction was not an advisable 
one. Of all India and its adjacent countries, Kashmir 
is the district best suited for Europeans, and it affords 
large room for English colonisation. It has now a 
population of about half a million ; but it had formerly 
one of four millions, and it could easily support that 
number. It has an immense amount of fertile land 
lying waste in all the vallej^s, and it would have been 
just the place for the retirement of Anglo-Indians at 
the close of their periods of service. As it is, Kashmir 
is practically closed to us except as a place of resort for 
a few summer visitors. Probably the visitors would be 
a good deal worse off than they are at present if it were 
under British rule ; but that is not a matter of much 
importance. The Maharajah acknowledges the supre- 
macy of the British Government, and yet no Englishman 
can settle in the country or purchase a foot of land in it. 
We are not even allowed to stay there through the 
winter ; for a recent relaxation of this rule has been 
much misunderstood, and simply amounts to a permis- 



KASHMIR. 



303 



sion for British officers, who cannot get leave in summer, 
to visit Kashmir in winter. Visitors have to leave the 
country about the middle of October, and the Panjab 
Government has issued very strict rules for their guid- 
ance while they are in the Valley. After mentioning 
the four authorised routes for European visitors to 
Kashmir, the first rule goes on to say (the italics are its 
own), ''All other roads are positively forbidden ; and, in 
respect to the direct road from Jummoo (known as the 
Bunnihal route), the prohibition has been ordered at the 
special request of his Highness the Maharajah. The 
road branching from Rajaoree by Aknoer, which is 
used by the Maharajah's family and troops, is also 
expressly prohibited." Now this Jamu and Banihal 
route is by much the shortest and much the easiest 
route to Kashmir, except for the small section of visitors 
who come from that part of the Panjab which lies to 
the west of the Jhelam ; and yet it is kept closed, at 
the Maharajah's special request, though another route 
is set apart for the movements between Srinagar and 
Jamu of his family and troops ! In fact, by this order, 
in-order to get a tolerable route, the traveller has to 
cross great part of the Panjab and go up by Rawal 
Pindi and Mari, for neither the Pir Panjal nor the 
Punah routes are convenient. In Rule II. we are told 
that every officer about to visit Kashmir " should en- 
gage, before proceeding, a sufficient number of ponies 
or mules for the conveyance of his baggage ; " which is 
tantamount to saying that no one need put in a claim 
for getting any coolies, ponies, or mules by the v/ay. 
In Rule VI. they are told to encamp only at the fixed 
stages and encamping-grounds. In Rule X. it is said 
that " when going out on shooting excursions, visitors 
are to take carriage and supplies with them." Rule 
XV. is amusing, considering the high moral tone of 



304 THE ABODE OF SNO IV. 

the British subaltern : " Officers are not allowed to 
take away with them, either in. their service, or with 
their camps, any subjects of the Maharajah, without 
obtaining permission and a passport from the author- 
ities." I have heard of one visitor who tried to talce 
away a Kashmiri damsel by putting lier in a ki/fa, 
or wicker-basket used for Garr\-ing loads in, but the 
smuggling -was detected. This rule does not prevent 
the bagnios all over India being filled with Kashmiri 
women ; and a regular slave-traffic goes on, most of the 
good-looking girls being taken out of Kashmir at an 
early age; but, of course, the morals of the British 
officer must be looked after. He is also by Rule XVI. 
made responsible for the debts incurred by his servants, 
which is rather hard, as most Indians make a rule of 
getting into debt up to the full amount of their credit. 
In Rule XVII. , all visitors are told, in italics, "All 
presents to be refused. Presents of every description 
must be rigidl)^ refused." This certainly is interfering 
in an extraordinary way with the liberty of the subject; 
but let the visitor beware how he violates any of these 
rules, because the Resident at Srinagar has the power 
of expelling him from the country. It is the Panjab, 
not the supreme Government, which is directly respon- 
sible for these extraordinary regulations; and I daresay 
English people will be rather surprised by them. Tiie 
Maharajah of Kashmir is called in them "an indepei> 
dent sovereign;" but it is distinctly stated in Article X. 
of the Treaty which gave him his dominions, tiiat he 
"acknowledges the supremacy of the I^ritish Govern- 
ment." Can the Panjab Government not understand 
that when the power of England guarantees the safety 
of the Maharajah and of his dominions, it is not for 
British officials to treat British visitors to Kashmir in 
so derogatory a manner, or to allow of their being 



KASHMIR. 30? 



turned out of the country ever}^ winter, and refused 
permission to purchase even waste land ? This is only 
one of many subjects which may render it necessary 
to raise the questions, — In whose interest, on whose 
authority, and supported by what power, does Anglo- 
Indian officialdom exist? The imperial interests of 
Great Britain have been too much lost sight of, and it is 
on these that the real, the vital interests of the people of 
India depend. 

The Resident procured me a private audience of the 
Maharajah Ranbir or Runbir Singh, which was given 
in a balcon}% overhanging the river, of his city palace, 
within the precincts of which there is a tenTple Avith a 
large pagoda-like roof that is covered with thin plates 
of pure gold. His Highness is reputed to be somewhat 
serious and bigoted as regards his religion. It was men- 
tioned in the Indian papers a few years ago, that the 
Brahmins having discovered that the soul of his father, 
Golab Singh, had migrated into the body of a fish, Ran- 
bir Singh gave orders that no fish were to be killed in 
Kashmir, though fish is there one of the great staple 
articles of food among the poorer classes. The edict, 
however, was calculated to cause so much distress, that 
the Brahmins soon announced that the paternal spirit 
had taken some other form. I never heard this story 
contradicted ; and it affords a curious instance of the 
reality of the belief in transmigration which exists in 
India. As the character of these transmigrations, and 
the amount of suffering and enjoyment which they 
involve, is considered to depend on the good or evil 
conduct of preceding lives, and especially of those which 
are passed in a human form, such a belief would be 
calculated to exercise an important influence for good, 
were it not for the sacrificial theory which attaches so 
much importance, as good works, to sacrifices to the 

u 



3o6 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

gods, and to gifts to their priestly ministers; and its 
beneficial effect is also lessened by the tendency of the 
Indian mind to assign an undue value to indiscriminate 
acts of charity, such as often do harm^rather than good. 
It is curious to think of a Maharajah looking from his 
balcony beside his golden temple into the waters of the 
Jhelam, and wondering whether his royal father is one 
of the big or of the little fishes floating about in its 
stream or in some adjacent water. 

Some visitors to Kashmir have blamed its ruler 
severely for the condition of the country — as, for in- 
stance, Dr Adams, who says : " It is vain, however, to 
hope that there can be any progress under the present 
ruler, who, like his father, is bent on self-aggrandise- 
ment.'""' This, however, is entirely opposed to the sub- 
stance of many conversations I had on the subject with 
Mr Wynne, who seemed to. regard his Highness as one 
of the very few honest men there were in the country, 
sincerely anxious for the welfare of its inhabitants ; and 
he mentioned to me various circumstances which sup- 
ported that conclusion. Without going beyond diplo- 
matic reserve, he said it was only to be hoped that the 
Maharajah's sons would follow their father's example. I 
do not profess to see into a millstone farther than other 
people, but may say that the little I saw of this prince 
conveyed a superficial impression quite in accordance 
with Mr Wynne's opinion. He seemed an earnest, over- 
burdened man, seriously anxious to fulfil the duties of 
his high position, and heavily weighed down by them ; 
but it can easily be conceived how little he can do in 
a country which has been from time immemorial in so 
wretched a state, and how much reason he ma\' have 



* "Wanderings of a Naturalist in India." By A. L. Adams, M.D. 
Edinburgh, 1S67. P. 296. 



KASHMIR. 307 

for wishing that he were expiating his shortcomings in 
the form of a fish. _ And it should not be forgotten that 
this prince was faithful to us, and in a very useful 
manner, at the time of the great Indian Mutiny ; for he 
sent six battalions of infantry, two squadrons of cavalry, 
and a battery of guns, to assist us at the siege of Delhi; 
and, by this, considerable moral support was afforded at 
the moment to the British Raj. I met, going down the 
Jhelam, a Kashmir regiment which had been at the siege 
of Delhi, and the officer in command spoke with some 
pride, but by no means in a boasting or offensive wa}', 
of his having fought along with English troops. 

Among the improvements introduced by Ranbir 
Singh are those in the administration of justice and the 
manufacture of silk. The Chief-Justice of the court of 
Srinagar is an educated native, I think from Bengal, 
who was well spoken of — and, absurdly enough, is in 
charge of the- silk department also. He has been at 
pains to make himself acquainted with the breeding of 
silk-worms and the spinning of their cocoons, as pursued 
in other countries, and has turned this knowledge to 
good account in Srinagar. One pleasing and extra- 
ordinary innovation which he has been able to introduce 
is that of inducing children and others of the Brahmin 
caste to engage in the spinning of silk. Anything like 
such an occupation has hitherto been considered as de- 
grading, and forbidden to Brahmins, and has not been 
entered on by those even in such advanced Indian cities 
as Calcutta and Bombay. It shows a curious Avay of 
managing matters ' that the Chief-Justice of Srinagar 
should also be the head of the silk department ;' but 
such is, or at least very lately was, the case ; and under 
his management sericulture has been improved and de- 
veloped. In 1 87 1, the Maharajah set apart ;^ 30,000 for 
the development of this branch of industry, and part of 



3'-;8 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

the sum was expended on the construction of buildings 
in which an equal temperature could be maintained for 
the silk-worms. I saw the process of extracting and 
winding the silk in the factory beside Srinagar : it was 
skilfully conducted, and the threads produced . were 
remarkably fine and perfect. The mulberry trees of 
Kashmir have hitherto enjoyed exemption from disease 
and injury from insects, so that the prospects of -this 
production are very good, and a commencement has 
been made in weaving the silk into cloth. The whole 
production is a monopoly of Government ; but it gives 
increasing employment to a considerable number of 
persons, on what, for Kashmir, are good wages. In 
1872 the amount of dry cocoons produced amounted to 
57,600 lbs., and the resulting revenue was estimated at 
124,000 chilki rupees, a portion of it, however, being re- 
quired for the improvements which were made. 

The famous shawls of Kashmir are now somewhat at 
a discount in the world, except in France, where they 
still form a portion of almost every bride's trousseau, 
and where, at least in novels, every lady of the demi- 
inonde is described as wrapped in un vrai Cachemere, and 
wearing a pair of Turkish slippers. France alone takes 
about 80 per cent, of the Kashmir shawls exported from 
Asia; the United States of America take 10, Italy 5, 
Russia 2, and Great Britain and Germany only i per 
cent each. Of course the late war almost entirely de- 
stroyed the shawl trade, but it has for the time being 
returned to its former state ; and, at the period of 
collapse, the Maharajah humaneh^ made enormous pur- 
chases on his own account. The revenue from this 
source has diminished to at least half what it was some 
years ago ; but still a superior woven shawl will bring, 
even in Kashmir, as much as ;:^300 sterling; and about 
iJ"i 30,000 worth of shawls is annualh' exported, ;^90,0G0 



KASHMIR. 309 



worth going to Europe. The finest of the goat's wool 
employed in this manufacture comes from Turfan, in 
the Yarkund territory ; and it is only on the wind-swept 
steppes of Central Asia that animals are found to pro- 
duce so fine a wool. The shawl-weavers get miserable 
wages, and are allowed neither to leave Kashmir nor 
change their employment, so that they are nearly in the 
position of slaves ; and their average wage is only about 
three-halfpence a day. 

Srinagar itself has a very fine appearance when one 
does not look closely into its details. As the Kashmiri 
has been called the Neapolitan of the East, so his capital 
has been compared to Florence, and his great river to 
the Arno. But there is no European town which has 
such a fine placid sweep of river through it. The capital 
dates from 59 A.D., and portions of it might be set down 
to any conceivable date. For the most part, the houses 
either rise up from the Jhelam or from the canals with 
which the city is intersected, and are chiefly of thin brick 
walls supported in wooden frames. Being often three 
storeys high, and in a most ruinous condition, the walls 
present anything but straight lines, and it is a marvel that 
many of the houses continue standing at all. Some of 
the canals present deliciously picturesque scenes, such 
as even Venice cannot boast of, and the view from any 
of the five bridges across the Jhelam is very striking ; 
but, as remarked, it is better to leave the interior un- 
visited beyond floating through the canals. The British 
Residency, and the bungalows provided free of charge 
for European visitors, are above the city, on the right 
bank of the river, which here presents a noble appear- 
ance, and in a splendid line of poplar-trees. A wooded 
island opposite them adds to the beauty of the scene.. 
Almost every place about Srinagar that one wants to 
go to can be reached by boat, and the wearied traveller 
may enjoy a delicious repose. 



CHAPTER IX. 

SC£NES IN KASHMIR. 

I MUST now refer briefly to a few more picturesque 
places in that beautiful country. There is one ex- 
cursion from Srinagar, which can easily be made in a 
day by boat, that is specially worthy of notice, and 
it takes through canals and through the apple-tree 
garden into the Dal-o City Lake, and to two of the 
gardens and summer-houses of the Mogul Emperors. 
I write on the shore of Ulleswater, at once the grandest 
and most beautiful of the English lakes : the moun- 
tains and sky are reflected with perfect distinctness 
in the deep unruffled water, and the renewed power of 
the earth is running up through the trees, and breaking 
out into a dim mist of buds and tiny leaves ; but ex- 
quisite as the scene before me is, its beauty cannot 
dim or equal my remembrance of the lakes of Kashmir, 
though even to these the English scenery is superior as 
regards the quality, to use a phrase of Wordsworth's, of 
being " graduated by nature into soothing harmony." 

The Dal is connected with the Jhelam by the Sont-i- 
Kol or Apple-tree Canal, which presents one of the finest 
combinations of wood and water in the world. The 
scene is English in character ; but I do not know of any 
river scene in England which is equal to it — so calm is 
•the water, so thickly is the stream covered with tame 
aquatic birds of very varied plumage, so abundant the 
fish, so magnificent, as well as beautiful, the trees which 



SCENES IN KASHMIR. 311 

rise from its lotus-fringed, smooth, green banks. An 
Afghan conqueror of Kashmir proposed to cover this 
piece of water with a trellis-work of vines, supported 
from the trees on the one side to those on the other ; 
but that would have shut out the view of the high, wild 
mountains, which heighten, by their contrast, the beauty 
and peacefulness of the scene below. Many of the trees, 
and a whole line of them on one side, are enormous 
planes {Platanus orieiitalis\ mountains of trees, and yet 
beautiful in shape and colour, with their vast masses of 
foliage reflected in the calm, clear water. 

From thence we pass into the Dal, a lake about five 
miles long, with half the distance in breadth, one side 
being bounded by great trees, or fading into a reedy 
waste, and the other encircled by lofty mountains. The 
most curious feature of this lake is the floating gardens 
upon the surface of its transparent water. The reeds, 
sedges, water-lilies, and other aquatic plants which grow 
together in tangled confusion, are, when they cluster 
together more thickly than usual, detached from their 
roots. The leaves of the plants are then spread out 
over the stem.s and covered with soil, on which melons 
and cucumbers are grown. These floating islands form 
a curious and picturesque feature in the landscape, and 
their economical uses are considerable. Moorcroft men- 
tions having seen vines upon them, and has supplied the 
detailed information regarding them which has been 
made use of by succeeding travellers and statisticians. 
"A more economical method of raising cucumbers can- 
not be devised," — and, he might have added, of melons 
also. According to Cowper — 

" No sordid fare, 
A cucumber ! " 

But, thanks to these floating gardens, you don't require 
to ruin yourself in order to eat cucumbers in Kashmir ; 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



and the melons are as good as they are cheap, and must 
liave valuable properties ; for Captain Bates says, "those 
who live entirely on them soon become fat," which pro- 
bably arises from the sugar they contain. Usually, in 
the fruit season, two or three watchers remain all night in 
a boat attached to these islands, in order to protect them 
from water-thieves. On the Dal I came across several 
boatmen fishing up the root of the lotus with iron hooks 
attached to long poles. This yellow root is not unpalat- 
able raw, but is usually eaten boiled, along with condi- 
ments. Southey's lines, though strictly applicable only 
to the red-flowering lotus, yet suggest a fair idea of the 
lotus-leaves on this Kashmir lake, as they are moved by 
the wind or the undulations of the water. 

" Around the lotus stem 
It rippled, and the sacred flowers, that crown 
The lakelet with their roseate beauty, ride 
In gentlest waving, rocked from side to side ; 
And as the wind upheaves 

Their broad and l>iioyant weight, the glossy leaves 
Flap on the twinkling waters up and down." 

Still more useful for the people of Kashmir, as an 
article of diet, is the horned water-nut {Traba bispinosa), 
which is ground into flour, and made into bread. No 
less than 60,000 tons of it are said to be taken from the 
Wiilar Lake alone every season, or sufficient to supply 
about 13,000 people with food for the entire year. These 
nuts are to be distinguished from the nuts, or rather 
beans, of the lotus {Nclumbhun spccioswii)^ which are 
also used as- an article of food, and prized as a delicacy. 
These, with the lotus-roots, and the immense quantity 
of fish, provide abundance of food for a much larger 
population than is to be found in the neighbourhood of 
the Kashmir lakes ; but of what avail is such bountv of 



SCENES IN KASHMIR. 313 

Providence when the first conditions of human pros- 
perity are wanting ? 

Passing the Silver Island and the Island of Chunars, 
I went up to the Shalimar Bagh, or Garden of Delight, 
a garden and pleasure-house, the work of the Emperor 
Jehangi'r and of his spouse Nur Jahan ; but fine as this 
place' is, I preferred the Nishat Bagh, or Garden of Plea- 
sure, which is more in a recess of the lake, and also was 
a retreat constructed by the same ro3'al pair, and planned 
by the Empress herself. The Garden of. Pleasure is 
more picturesquely situated, though shaded by not less 
magnificent trees. The mountains rise up close behind 
it, and suggest a safe retreat both from the dangers and 
the cares of state ; and its view of the lake, hicluding 
the Sona Lank, or Golden Island, is more suggestive of 
seclusion and quiet enjoyment. Ten terraces, bounded 
by magnificent trees, and with a stream of water falling 
over them, lead up to the latticed pavilion at the end of 
this garden. Between the double storeys of this pavilion 
the stream flows through a marble, or, at least, a lime- 
stone tank, and the structure is shaded by great cJiundr 
trees, while, through a vista of their splendid foliage, we 
look down the terraces and watercourses upon the lake 
below. This was, and still is, a fitting place in which a 
great, luxurious, and pleasure-loving emperor might find 
repose, and gather strength for the more serious duties 
of power. Jehangir was a strange but intelligible cha- 
racter. One historian briefly says of him — " Himself 
a drunkard during his whole life, he punished all who 
used wine." And after the unsuccessful rebellion of his 
son Khusru, he made that prince pass along a line of 
700 of his friends who had assisted him in rebelling. 
These friends were all seated upon spikes — in fact, they 
were impaled ; so we may see it was not without good 
reason that Jehangir occasionally sought for secluded 



314 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

places of retirement. But these characteristics, taken 
alone, give an unfair idea of this great ruler. Though 
he never entirely shook off the dipsomaniac habits which 
he had formed at an early age, yet it may have been an 
acute sense of the inconvenience of them which made 
him so anxious to prevent any of his subjects from 
falling into the snare ; he hints an opinion that though 
his own head might stand liquor without much damage, 
it by no means followed that other people's heads could 
do so ; and the severe punishment of the adherents of a 
rebellious son was, in his time, almost necessary to secure 
the throne. He did, in fact, love mercy as well as do 
justice, and was far from being a bad ruler. He was 
wont to say that he would rather lose all the rest of his 
empire than Kashmir ;* and it is likely that in this and 
similar gardens he enjoyed the most pleasure which his 
life afforded. His companion there was Mihrunnisa 
Khanam, better known as Nur Jahan, "the Light of the 
World." t When a }-oung prince he had seen and loved 
her, but they were separated by circumstances ; and it 
was not until after the death of her husband, Sher 
Afkan, and he had overcome her dread of marrying one 
whom she supposed to have been her husband's mur- 
derer, that Mihrunnisa became Jehangi'r's wife, and 
received the name of the Light of the World. A great 
improvement in the Emperor's government resulted 
from this union : the story is a curious illustration of 
the abiding power of love, and it goes far to redeem 
the character of this dissipated emperor, who would 
allow nobody to get drunk except himself I daresay, if 

* "Voyages de Francois Bernier, contenant la Description des Elats cki 
Grand Mogol." Amsterdam, 1699. 

t Slie was also, for a lime, called Nur Malial, the Light of the Palace ; 
and under this name must be distinguislied frcm tlie queen of Jeliangir's 
son. Shah Talidn, to wliom was raised the xvomlerful Taj Malinl at Agra. 



SCENES IN KASHMIR. 315 

the truth were known, the Light of the World must 
have had a sad time of it with her amorous lord ; but 
she was at least devoted to him, and seriously risked her 
life for him when the audacious Mahabat Khan unex- 
pectedly made him a prisoner. The memory of these 
faithful lovers seems still to linger about the Nishat 
Bagh, and to have transferred itself into the imperial 
splendour of the plane-trees, the grateful shadow of the 
mountains, and the soft dreamy vista over the placid 
lake. 

Nearly all the English visitors had left Kashmir before 
I reached that country, and this gave me more oppor- 
tunity of enjoying the society of Mr Le Poer Wynne, 
of whom I may speak more freely than of other Indian 
officials who remain. Two or three officers, on their way 
out of the valley, appeared at the Residency, and a 
couple of young Englishmen, or Colonials, fresh from 
the Antipodes, who could see little to admire in Kash- 
mir ; but the only resident society in 5rinagar was a 
fine Frenchman, a shawl agent, and Colonel Gardiner, 
who commanded the Maharajah's artiller}^, a soldier of 
fortune ninety years of age. Colonel Gardiner was 
born on the shores of Lake Superior, and had wandered 
into Central Asia at an early period. There was some- 
thing almost appalling in hearing this ancient warrior 
discourse of what have now become almost prehistoric 
times, and relate his experiences in the service of Ranji't 
Singh, Shah Shuja, Dost Mohammed, and other kings 
and chiefs less known to fame. If (as I have no reason 
to believe) he occasionally confused hearsay with his 
own experience, it could scarcely be v.'ondered at con- 
sidering his years, and there is no doubt as to the 
general facts of his career. Listening to his graphic 
narrations. Central Asia vividly appeared as it was more 
than half a century ago, when Englishmen could traverse 



3i6 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

it not only with tolerable safety, but usually as honoured 
guests. 

But most usually the Resident and myself spent our 
evenings tetc-d-tete, no one coming in except an old 
Afghan cJmprassie, whose business it was to place logs 
upon the fire. This Abdiel had been a sepoy, and was 
the only man in his regiment who had remained faithful 
at the time of the Mutiny — " among the faithless, faithful 
only he;" and the honesty of his character extended 
down into his smallest transactions. He took a paternal 
but respectful interest in us, clearly seeing that the fire 
must be kept up, though our conversation ought not to 
be disturbed ; so he would steal into the room as quietly 
as possible, and place logs on the fire as gently as if we 
were dying warriors or Mogul emperors. Wynne him- 
self was a man of very interesting mind and character, 
being at once gentle and firm, kindly and open, yet with 
much tact, and combining depth of thought with very 
wide culture. When a student, he had employed his long 
vacations in attending the universities of Germany and 
France, and was widely acquainted with the literature, of 
these countries, as well as able to converse fluently in 
their languages. To the usual Oriental studies of an 
Indian civilian, he had added a large acquaintance with 
Persian poetry, and really loved the country to which he 
had devoted himself, chiefly from a desire to find a more 
satisfactory and useful career than is now open to young 
men at home with little or no fortune. Perhaps he was 
too much of a student, disposed to place too high a value 
on purely moral and intellectual influences, and too much 
given to expect that )-oung officers should renounce all 
the follies of youth, and old fighting colonels conduct 
themselves as if they were children of light. That sprang, 
however, from perfect genuineness and beauty of char- 
acter, to which all things evil, or even questionable, were 



- SCENES IN KASHMIR. 317 

naturally repulsive ; and it was wholl}' unaccompanied 
by any tendency to condemn others, being simply a 
desire to encourage them towards good. There was not 
a little of the pure and chivalrous nature of Sir Philip 
Sidney in Le Poer W\'nne ; and he might also be com- 
pared in character to the late Frederick Robertson ot 
Brighton, whose sermons he spoke to me of as having 
made quite an era in his life. European culture and 
thought had not taught him to undervalue either the 
methods or the results of " divine philosophy," nor had 
his mind been overwhelmed by the modern revelations 
of the physical universe, though he Avas well acquainted 
with them ; and his departure from much of traditional 
theology had only led him to value more the abiding 
truths of religion. Our conversation related only in part 
to the East, and ranged over many fields of politics, 
philosophy, and literature. I cannot recall these nights 
at Srinagar without mingled sadness and pleasure. It 
never struck me then that we were in a house at all, but 
rather as if we were by a camp-fire. My host had a way 
of reclining before the fire on the floor; the flames of 
the wood shot up brilliantly ; brown Abdiel in his sheep- 
skin coat suggested the Indian Caucasus; and instead 
of the gaudily-painted woodwork of the Residency, I felt 
around us only the circle of snowy mountains, and above, 
the shining hosts of heaven. And to both of us this was 
a camp-fire, and an unexpected happy meeting in the 
wilderness of life. A few months afterwards, Mr Wynne, 
after a short run to Europe on privilege-leave, returned 
to Calcutta, in order to take up the office of Foreign 
Secretary during the absence of Mr Aitchison, and died 
almost immediately after. He had not been many years 
in the Indian Civil Service, and the highest hopes were 
entertained of his future career. I had felt, however, in- 
stinctively, that so fine an organisation, both mental and 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



physical, must either " die or be degraded ; " and per- 
haps it was with some subtle, barely conscious precog- 
nition of his early doom that Wynne rose and made a 
note of the lines which I quoted to him one night when 
we were speaking of the early death of another young 
Indian civilian — 

" But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, 
And think to burst out into sudden blaze, 
Comes the blind Fury with tk' abhorred shears. 
And slits the thin-spun life. But not the praise," 

But praise, or fame, as here- used by Milton and some 
of our older writers, is not to be- confounded with the 
notoriety of the world, which almost any eccentricity, 
vulgarity, self-assertion, or accidental success may com- 
mand. It is even something more than the "good and 
honest report " of the multitude, or the approval of the 
better-minded of the human race, both of which judg- 
ments must often proceed on very imperfect and mis- 
leading grounds. Milton himself expressed the truest 
meaning of fame when Phoebus touched his trembling 
ears, and, immediately after the passage just quoted, he 
went on to say — • 

" Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, 
Nor in the glistening foil 
Set off to th' w6il(l, iiov in broad rumour lies. 
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes, 
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove ; 
As he p; onounces lastly on eacJi deed, 
Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed." 

It must be fancied that the poet is rather inconsistent 
here, because he begins by speaking of fame as " the last 
infirmity of noble minds ; " and surely it can hardly be 
an infirmity to value the judgment which proceeds from 
the "perfect witness of all-judging Jove." But there is 
no inconsistency when the whole passage in " Lycidas " is 



SCENES IN KASHMIR. 319. 

considered, beginning-, " Alas ! what boots it with inces- 
sant care ? " The argument is that it must matter 

nothing, seeing that when we expect to find tiie guerdon 
and break out into sudden blaze, then comes Fate with 
the abhorred shears ; but to this Phoebus answers re- 
provingly that fame is not of mortal growth, and only 
lives and spreads above^ This suggests a double life 
even now, and identifies fame with our own better exist- 
ence. There is no subject, however, on which men are 
so apt to deceive themselves as when appealing to a 
higher and unseen judgment : probably few criminals go 
to execution without a deceiving belief that Heaven will 
be more merciful to them than man has been, because 
they can shelter themselves under the truth that Heaven 
alone knows what their difficulties and temptations have 
been, forgetting that it alone also knows their oppor- 
tunities and the full wickedness of their life. Every man 
should mistrust himself when he looks forward to that 
higher fame with any other feeling than one of having 
been an unprofitable servant ; and even this feeling 
should be mistrusted when it goes into words rather than 
to the springs of action. It is in the general idea, and as 
resrards others rather than ourselves, that the consola- 
tion of Milton's noble lines may be found. The dread 
severance of the abhorred shears extends not merely to 
the lives of the young and promising, but to all in human 
life which is beautiful and good. What avails the closest 
companionship, the fondest love, before the presence of 
Death the separator .'' In even ai\ ordinary life, how many 
bright promises have been destroyed, how many dearest 
ties severed, and how many dark regrets remain ! For 
that there is no consolation worth speaking of except the 
faith that all which was good and beautiful here belov*' 
still lives and blooms above. 

There are several very beautiful or striking places 



320 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

about the sources of the Jhelam which no visitor to 
Kashmir should omit to see. Islamabad can be reached 
in two days by boat, if the river is not in flood ; and the 
mat awning- of the boats lets down close to the gunwale, 
so as to form a comfor-table closed apartment for night. 
In late autumn, at least, the waters of Kashmir are so 
warm, as compared with the evening and night air,- that 
towards afternoon an extraordinary amount of steam 
begins to rise from them. But the air is exceedingly 
dry notwithstanding the immense amount of water in 
the valley, and the frequent showers of rain which fall ; 
and there is very little wind in Kashmir, which is an 
immense comfort, especially for dwellers in tents. There 
is now no difficulty in obtaining information in regard 
to Kashmir amply sufficient to guide the visitor. The 
older books on that country are well enough known, such 
as those of Bernier, Jacquemont, Moorcroft, HUgel, and 
Vigne; and it is curious how much information we owe 
to them, and how repeatedly that information has been 
produced by later writers, apparently without any at- 
tempt to verify it, or to correct it up to date. Three 
books on Kashmir, however, which have been published 
very recently, will be found of great use to the traveller 
of our day. First and foremost of these is " A Voca- 
bulary of the Kashmiri Language," by the late lamented 
medical missionary, Dr W. J. Elmslie, published by the 
Church Missionary House in London in 1872. It is a 
small volume, and gives the Kashmiri for a great num- 
ber of English words, as well as the English for Kash- 
miri ones ; and he has managed to compress into it a 
large amount of valuable and accurate information in 
regard to the valley, its products and its inhabitants. 
To any one who has a talent for languages, or who has 
had a good deal of experience in acquiring them, it will 
be found a very easy matter to learn to speak a little 



SCENES IN KASHMIR. 321 

modern Kashmiri, which is nearly altogether a colloquial 
language ; and for this purpose Dr Elmslie's Vocabu- 
lary — the fruit of six laborious seasons spent in the 
countty — will be found invaluable. The acquisition of 
this language is also rendered easy by its relationship to 
those of India and Persia. The largest number of its 
words, or about 40 per cent., are said to be Persian ; 
Sanscrit gives 25; Hindusthani, 15 ; Arabic, 10; and 
the Turanian dialects of Central Asia, 15. The letters 
of ancient Kashmiri closely resemble those of Sanscrit, 
and are read only by a ver}^ few of the Hindu priests in 
Kashmir; and it is- from these that the Tibetan charac- 
ters appear to have been taken. The second important 
work to which I allude has not been published at all, 
having been prepared "for political and military refer- 
ence," for the use of the Government of India. It is "A 
Gazetteer of Kashmir and the adjacent districts of Kisht- 
war, Badrawar, Jamu, Naoshera, Punch, and the Valley 
of the Kishen Ganga, by Captain Ellison Bates, Bengal 
Staff Corps." This volume was printed in 1873, and 
will be found very useful to those who can get hold of 
it. The principal places in the valley, and in the dis- 
tricts mentioned above, are enumerated alphabetically 
and described ; and there are nearly 150 pages in which 
routes are detailed in such a manner that the traveller 
will know what he has to expect upon them. It has also 
an introduction, which contains much information in re- 
gard to the country generally, but a great deal of this has 
been taken from the older writers, and some of it does 
not appear to have been verified. In this respect Dr 
Elmslie's "Kashmiri Vocabularv" affords more original 
information than Captain Bates's Gazetteer, but the 
latter will be found a ver}^ valuable work of reference. 
The third volume I speak of is of a less learned de- 
scription, and is " The Kashmir Handbook : a Guide for 

X 



322 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

Visitors, with Map and Routes, By John Ince, M.D., 
Bengal Medical Service ; " and was published at Cal- 
cutta in 1872. This work is not free from errors, as 
notably in its rendering of the Persian inscriptions on 
the Takht-i-Suliman, and it indiscriminately heaps to- 
gether a good deal of information from various sources. 
It is also very costly for its size, and the arrangement is 
not very good ; but, nevertheless, it is a useful guide- 
book. Armed with these three recently-published vol- 
umes, the visitor to Kashmir is supplied with all the 
informa':ion which an ordinary traveller requires in going 
through a strange country ; but their maps are not sat- 
isfactory, and he will do well to supply himself with 
the five-mile-to-the-inch sheets of the Trigonometrical 
Survey, The antiquarian may consult Cunningham's 
" Ancient Geography of India," published in London in 
1871, and Lieutenant Cole's "Illustrations of Ancient 
Buildings in Kashmir." For the sportsman, there are 
Brinkman's " Rifle in Kashmir," and several other books, 
more or less of a light character. Bernier, the first of 
all the European travellers in Kashmir since possibly 
Marco Polo, is exceedingly good ; Jacquemont's Letters 
are graphic and amusing, though full of insane vanity ; 
and l^vloorcroft gathered himself much more information 
regarding the country than almost any other traveller 
has done, for Elmslie may almost be regarded as having 
been a resident. 

At Pandrathan, not far up the Jhelam from Srinagar, 
we came upon the site of an ancient capital of the 
Kashmir valley, and on a very ruinous old temple situ- 
ated in the middle of a tank, or rather pond. The name 
of this place affords an excellent example of the present 
state of our knowledge of Kashmir antiquities ; Dr Ince, 
Captain Bates, and Lieutenant Cole, following General 
Cunningham, deriving it from Puranadhisthana. or " the 



SCENES IN KASHMIR. 323 

old chief cit\' ;" while Dr Elmslie, adopting its Kashmir 
sound, Pandrenton, derives it from Darendun and his 
five sons the famous Pandus. Hiigel, again, made the 
mistake of calling it a Biidhist temple, though it is clearly 
Hindu, and associated with the Naga or snake worship. 
The water round this temple makes an examination of 
the interior difficult; but Captain Bates says that the 
roof is covered with sculpture of such purely classic de- 
sign, that any uninitiated person who saw it on paper 
would at once take it for a sketch from a Greek or 
Roman original. This suggests actual Greek influence ; 
and Cunningham says, in connection with the .fluted 
columns, porches, and pediments. of Martand, "I feel 
convinced myself that several of the Kashmirian forms, 
and many of the details, were borrowed from the tem- 
ples of the Kabulian Greeks, while the arrangements of 
the interior, and the relative proportions of the different 
parts, were of Hindu origin." It is not improbable, how- 
ever, that these Kashmir ruins may have belonged to an 
earlier age, and have had an influence upon Greek archi- 
tecture instead of having been influenced by it ; but be 
that as it may, this beautiful little temple, with its pro- 
fusion of decoration, and grey with antiquity, stands 
alone, a curious remnant of a lost city and a bygone age 
— the city, according to tradition, having been burned 
by King Abhimanu in the tenth century of the Chris- 
tian era. 

Camping for the night some way above this, and on 
the opposite side of the river, I saw some magnificent 
hunting-dogs of the Maharajah, which bounded on their 
chains, and could hardly be held by their keepers, on 
the appearance of an unaccustomed figure. They were 
longer and higher than Tibetan mastiffs, and had some 
resemblance in hair and .shape to Newfoundlands, but 
were mostly of a brown and yellow colour. . The men 



324 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

in charge said these dogs were used for hunting down 
large game, especially leopards and wolves, and they 
were certainly formidable creatures ; but the ordinary 
dogs of Kashmir are very poor animals, even excluding 
the pariahs. Bates says that the wild dog exists in 
some parts of this country, as Lar and Maru Wardwan, 
hunts in packs, and, when pressed by hunger, will destroy 
children, and even grown persons. 

At Bijbehara, immediately above which the Jhelam 
begins to narrow considerably, there is one of those 
numerous and exquisitely picturesque-looking Kashmir 
bridges, resting on large square supports formed of logs 
of wood laid transversely, with trees growing out of 
them, and overshadowing the bridge itself, This town 
has 400 houses; and the following analysis, given by 
Captain Bates, of the inhabitants of these houses, affords 
a ver}^ fair idea of the occupations of a Kashmir town or 
large village :— Mohammedan zemindars or proprietors, 
80 houses; Mohammedan shopkeepers, 65 ; Hindu shop- 
keepers, 15 ; Brahmins, 8; pundits, 20; goldsmiths, 10; 
bakers, 5 ; washermen, 5 ; clothweavers, 9 ; blacksmiths, 
5 ; carpenters, 4 ; toy-makers, i ; surgeons (query, phle- 
botomists ?), 2 ; physicians, 3 ; leather-workers, 5 ; milk- 
sellers, 7; cow-keepers, 2 ; fishermen, 10; fishsellers, 7; 
butchers, 8 ; musicians, 2 ; carpet- makers, 2 ; blanket- 
makers, 3 ; Syud (descendant of the prophet), i ; MuUas 
(Mohammedan clergymen), 12 ; Pir Zadas (saints !), 40 ; 
Fakirs, 20. It will thus be seen that about a fourth of 
the 4C0 houses are occupied by the so-called ministers 
of religion ; and that the landed gentry are almost all 
Mohammedan, though the people of that religion com- 
plain of their diminished position under the present 
Hindu (Sikh) Raj in Kashmir. For these 400 houses 
there are 10 mosques, besides 8 smaller shrines, and 
several Hindu temples, }^et the Kashmiris are far from 



SCENES IN KASHMIR. 325 

being a religious people as compared with the races of 
India generally. Let us consider how an English village 
of 4000 or 6000 people would flourish if it were burdened 
in this way by a fourth of its population being ministers 
of religion, and in great part ruffians without family ties. 
It is a very rougli and uncertain calculation which sets 
down the population of Kashmir at half a million. The 
whole population of the' dominions of the Maharajah is 
said to be a million and a half, but that includes Jamu, 
which is much more populous than Kashmir. Captain 
Bates says that the estimate of the Maharajah's Govern- 
ment, founded on a partial census taken in 1869, gave 
only 475,000 ; but that is better than the population of 
the year 1835, when oppression, pestilence, and famine 
had reduced it so low as 200,00c. It is, however, not 
for want of producing that the population is small ; for, 
according to the same authority, "it is said that every 
woman has, at an average, ten to fourteen children." I 
do not quite understand this kind of average; but it 
seems to mean that, on an average, every woman has 
twelve children. That shows a prodigious fecundity, 
and is the more remarkable when we learn that the 
proportion of men to women is as three to one. This 
disproportion is produced by the infamous export of 
young girls to which I have already alluded ; and it is 
impossible that such a traffic could be carried on with- 
out the connivance of the Government, or at least of 
a very large number of the Government officials. Dr 
Elmslie's estimate of the population of Kashmir, includ- 
ing the surrounding countries and the inhabitants of the 
mountains, was 402,700 — of these, 75,000 being Hindus, 
312,700 being Surf Mohammedans, and 15,000 Shias. 
His estimate of the population of Srinagar was 127,000; 
but the census of the Government in 1869 gave 135,000 
for that city. 



326 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

At night our boatmen used to catch fish by holding 
a liglit over tlie water in shallow places, and transfixing 
the fish with short spears. So plentiful are these crea- 
tures, that between two and three dozen were caught in 
about half an hour, and many of them above a pound 
weight. I cannot say much of them, however, as articles 
of diet. The flesh was insipid and soft as putty, and 
they were as full of bones as a serpent. Vigne acutely 
observed that the common Himaliyan trout varies so 
much in colour and appearance, according to its age, 
season, and feeding-ground, that the Kashmiris have no 
difficulty in making out that there are several species of 
it instead of one. Bates mentions eleven kinds of fish 
as existent in the waters of Kashmir; but, with one ex- 
ception-, all the fish I had the fortune to see seemed of 
one species, and were the same in appearance as those 
which abound in prodigious quantities in the sacred 
, tanks. and the ponds in the gardens of the Mogul em- 
perors. The exception was a large fish, of which my 
servants partook on our way to the Wular Lake, and 
which made them violently sick. Elmslie agrees with 
Viene in mentioning onlv six varieties, and savs that 
the Hindus of Kashmir, as well as the Mohammedans, 
eat fish. Fly-fishing is pursued by the visitors to this 
country, but the fish do not rise readily to the fly, and 
Vigne says he found that kind of fishing to be an un- 
profitable employment. Much,, however, depends on 
the streams selected for this purpose, and an Angler's 
Guide to Kashmir is still a desideratum. Dr Ince men- 
tions several places where good casts are to be had, but 
otherwise he affords Piscator no information. 

Islamabad is a fine name, and the town which it 
denotes is the terminus of the navigation of the upper 
Jhelam. Boats do not go quite up to it, but within two 
or three miles of it, and there are a number of highly 



SCENES LN KA SHMIR. 3 z 7 

interesting- places around it within a radius of thirty 
miles. Though the second town in the province, it has 
only about 1500 houses, and its population is a little 
doubtful, as the statistician leaves us at liberty to cal- 
culate from ten to thirty inhabitants to the, house. It 
lies beneath the apex of the tableland, about 400 feet 
higher, on which the ruins of Martand are situated. By 
the Hindus it is called Anat Nag ; and it is of im- 
portance to notice the number of Nags there are in 
Kashmir in general, and in this part of the countr\- in 
particular, as the name relates to the old serpent-worship 
of the country. The present town of Islamabad is a 
miserable place, though it supports no less than fifteen 
Mohammedan temples, and its productions are shawls, 
saddle-cloths, and rugs. At the Anat Nag, where the 
sacred tanks are alive with thousands of tame fish, there 
are fine plane-trees and a large double-storej'ed building 
for respectable travellers. I only stopped for breakfast; 
but a very short experience of the interior of that build- 
ing drove me out into a summer-house in the garden. 
There is no doubt that if the fleas in the larger edifice 
were at all unanimous, they could easily push the 
traveller out of bed. The water of the sacred tanks 
proceeds from springs, and is slightly sulphureous in 
character, which does not appear to affect the health of 
the fish ; but it is strictly forbidden to kill these fish. 

At Islamabad, when I visited it, a good many newl}^- 
plucked crocus-flowers were in course of being dried in 
order to make saffron, though the great beds of this 
plant are further down the Jhelam. I entirely agree 
with the Emperor Jehangir — the man who would let 
nobody get drunk except himself — when he says in his 
journal, of these crocus- flowers, "Their appearance is 
best at a distance, and when plucked they emit a strong 
smell." With some humour Jehangir goes on to sa\', 



THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



" My attendants were all seized with a headache ; and 
although I myself was intoxicated with liquor at the 
time, I also felt my head affected." One would like to 
know how the Light of the World was affected on this 
occasion, but history is silent; and, so far as I know, 
only Tmolus loved to adorn his head with crocus- 
flowers, as we learn from the first Georgia of Virgil, 

56- 

'' Nonne vides croceos ut Tmolus odores, 
India mittet ebur, molles sua tliura Sabsei." 

Notwithstanding their odious smell when fresh, these 
saffron-flowers, when dried, are much valued as condi- 
ment for food, as medicine, and as supplying one of the 
colours with which Hindus make some of their caste- 
marks. The saffron is called kono;- in the Kashmiri 
language ; and, according to Elmslie, 180 grains of 
saffron — the dried stigmata of the Crocus sativiis — bring 
nearly a shilling in the valley itself. In good seasons, 
about 2000 traks of it are annually produced in the valley, 
and a trak seems to be equal to nearly 10 lbs. English. 
October is the season for collecting the flowers. A dry 
soil is said to be necessary to the growth of them ; and 
in from eight to twelve years they exhaust the soil so 
much, that eight years are often allowed to elapse before 
growing it again on the exhausted ground. 

The garden at Islamabad was full of soldiers, priests, 
and beggars ; and I was glad to move on five miles to 
Bawan, on the Liddar, where there is a similar grove and 
fish-ponds, but far more secluded, and with more magni- 
ficent trees. This is a delightful place, and almost no 
one was to be found in the enclosure round the tanks, 
which are held specially sacred. On the way thither I 
passed large flocks of ponies on graze, this part of 
Kashmir being famous for its breed. They are not in 
in any respect, except size, to be compared with the 



SCENES IN KASHMIR. 329 

ponies of Tibet; but they are tolerably sure-footed, and 
can continue pretty long daily journeys. At Srinagar 
I had purchased, for my own use, a Khiva horse, from 
a Panjabi colonel and well-known sportsman. It had 
been brought down to India in the \-ear 1872 by the 
envoy whom the Khan of Khiva sent to Lord North- 
brook to ask for assistance against the Russians — a 
request which was politely but firmly declined. This 
animal was of an iron-grey colour, with immensely thick, 
soft, short hair, and was of extraordinary thickness and 
length in the bod\% and so shaped that a crupper was 
required to keep the saddle from shpping on its 
shoulders. Nothing startled it; it was perfectly sure- 
footed, and could go long journeys among the 
mountains ; but though it had been shod, its feet soon 
got sore when I rode it with any rapidity along the 
plains. Its favourite pace was an artificially produced 
one, which consisted chiefly in moving the two feet on 
one side simultaneously, and in that way, which was 
rather an easy pace, it went almost as fast as it could 
trot or canter. 

The caves of Bhumju, in a limestone cliff near to 
Bawan, do not present very much of interest. One of 
them penetrates indefinitely into the mountain, and the 
belief is that it goes on for twenty miles at least ; but it 
gets so narrow and low, that I was fain to come to a 
stop after going about 200 paces with lighted torches. 
Dr Ince, in his Kashmir Handbook, calls it the Long- 
Cave, and says that it " may be traversed for about 210 
feet ; be}'ond this the passage becomes too small to 
admit a man, even when crawling, so that its total 
length cannot be ascertained ; the natives, however, 
believe it to be interminable. It is the abode of 
numerous bats, and the rock in many places is beau- 
tifully honeycombed by the action of water, which 



330 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

is constantly trickling from the higher portions of 
the roof." The water does trickle down upon one 
beautifully, but the honeycombing of the rock is the 
deposits of lime made by the water; and even within 
the 200 feet a sense of pressure is experienced from the 
rock-walls. Of course I was told all sorts of stories as 
to what lies beyond, such as great galleries, halls, 
sculptures, inscriptions, rivers, waterfalls, ■ evil demons, 
gods, goddesses, and so forth. All this sounded very 
interesting and enticing ; but v^-orming along a small 
aperture is by no means suited to my constitution or 
tastes, so I resisted the temptation, and said to myself, 
" Let General Cunningham creep up it : he is paid for 
looking after the archaeology of India." About fifty feet 
from the entrance of this passage, and opening from 
the left of it, there is a small cave-temple. In a still 
smaller excavated room near the entrance there are the 
bones of a human being ; but skeletons are not scarce in 
Kashmir, and no particular antiquarian interest attaches 
to these remains. Another cave in the immediate 
neighbourhood, which is reached by ladders and very 
steep stone steps, shows more traces of human work- 
manship. This is called the Temple Cave. At its 
entrance there is a fine trefoil arch, and on one of the 
platforms inside there is what Ince speaks of as " a 
Hindu temple built of stone, of pyramidal shape, about 
I \\ feet square, and one of the most perfect specimens 
of this style of architecture to be seen in any part of the 
country." I examined this cave rather hurriedh^, and 
took no notes concerning it, so I cannot speak with 
absolute certainty ; but my recollection of this Hindu 
temple and . perfect specimen of architecture is, that it 
was a somewhat ordinary but large Liiigam, an emblem 
which need not be explained to polite readers. 

On the sides of the bridle-path from these caves to 



SCENES IN KASHMIR. 33 1 

the tableland above, successive lake beaches were dis- 
tinctly visible. Geology leaves no doubt as to the 
truth of the old tradition that the great valley of 
Kashmir was once a magnificent lake, which has now 
subsided, leaving only remnants of itself, here and there. 
The name of this ancient lake was Sahti'sar, and the 
mountains surrounding it were thickly peopled. The 
tradition goes on to say that the lake became the abode 
of a terrible monster called Yaldeo, who, after devouring 
all the fish there were in the great water, proceeded to 
appease his hunger by devouring the inhabitants of the 
surrounding hills, who in consequence had to fly into 
the higher mountains above. At this stage the tradi- 
tional Rishi, or holy man, makes his appearance on the 
field : his name was Kashaf, and his great sanctity had 
given him the power of working miracles. This holy 
man proceeded to the north-west end of the lake, where 
the Jhelam now issues from the valley at Baramula, 
struck the ground with his trident, and the opening 
earth caused the waters of the lake to disappear, which 
soon brought about the death of the monster Yaldeo. 
Hence the name Kashmir, which is made out to be 
a contraction of Kashafmar, the place or country of 
Kashaf the Rishi, who may thus be said to have made 
it. As to the truth or probability of this story about 
Kashaf, I need say nothing. The Hindu may turn 
round upon us and argue: "You say the age of miracles 
is over, and you can show no modern ones in support of 
your religion more probable or less puerile in appear- 
ance than those which the masses of this country believe 
that our devotees still accomplish. As the age of 
miracles is past for you, so, unhappily, is for us the 
age for the incarnation and appearance on earth of 
our gods, otherwise you would not be here. This 
we have long been taught, and see abundant reason to 



332 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

believe, is the Kala Yogi, or Black Age, when the gods 
have retired from the earth ; but that does not prove 
they have never been here- before. We find that even 
the rationalistic Socrates did not deny the actual exist- 
ence of the gods of Greece ; and that, in an age of 
culture and criticism, the historian Plutarch thoroughly 
believed in them. Is the universal belief of whole 
nations, and of hundreds of millions of people for tens 
of centuries, to go for nothing in elucidation and proof 
of the past history of the human race t If so, what 
importance, what value, can we attach to the reasoning 
and conclusions of a few Western scientific men and 
critical historians who have formed a school within the 
last century ? The probability would be that they too 
have fallen into delusion, and are blindly leading the 
blind. It is more rational to believe that the gods 
of ancient Greece and India really existed, as at the 
time they were universally believed to exist, and that 
they are now, alas ! passed away from this portion 
of the universe, or have ceased to display themselves to 
the degraded human race." 

Some way up on the tableland, in a now lonely and 
desolate position, which commands the great valley of 
Kashmir, I found the wonderful ruin of the great temple 
of Martand. Vigne was quite justified in sa}-ing that, 
" as an isolated ruin, this deserves, on account of its 
solitary and massive grandeur, to be ranked not only as 
the first ruin of the kind in Kashmir, but as one of the 
noblest amongst the architectural relics of antiquity 
that are to be seen in any country." According to 
tradition, a large city once stood round it, — and there 
are indications that such may have been the case, — but 
now this wonderful ruin stands alone in solitary un- 
relieved glory. It is strange, in this secluded Eastern 
country, where the works of man are generally so mean, 



SCENES IN KASHMIR. 



and surrounded by these lofty snowy mountains, to 
come upon a ruin which, though so different in cha- 
racter, might yet vie with the finest remains of Greek 
and Roman architecture in its noble dimensions, in its 
striking and beautiful form, in the gigantic stones of 
which it is composed, in its imposing position, and bv 
the manner in which gloom and grandeur are softened 
by its exquisite pillars, and its delicate, though now 
half-defaced ornamentation. 

This temple is situated within an oblong colonnade 
composed of fluted pillars and decaying trefoil arches 
and walls. It rises above these in such perfect majesty, 
that one can hardly believe its present height is only 
about forty feet. Its majestic outlines are combined 
with rich and elaborate details ; but a description of 
these, or even of its outlines, would give no idea of its 
grand general effect, while desolation and silence are 
around. Moreover, as Captain Bates remarks, " It 
overlooks the finest view in Kashmir, and perhaps in 
the known world. Beneath it lies the paradise of the 
East, with its sacred streams and glens, its brown 
Orchards and green fields, surrounded on all sides by 
vast snowy mountains, whose lofty peaks seem to smile 
upon the beautiful valley below." 

Baron Hiigel asserts of this ancient ruin, which he 
calls by its name of Korau Pandau, or, more usually, 
Pandu-Koru, that it " owes its existence and name 
to the most ancient dynasty of Kashmir. The great 
antiquity of the ruin will be acknowledged, therefore, 
when I remind the reader that the Pandu dynasty 
ended 2500 years before Christ, after governing Kashmir, 
according to their historians, nearly 1 300 years." That 
would give an antiquity of nearly 5000 years to this 
temple : later archseologists, however, are more mode- 
rate in their demands upon our belief, and set it 



334 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



down as erected between A.D. 370 and 500 ; but the 
reasons for this are by no means conclusive. When 
one knows nothing about the history of an ancient 
temple, it is always safe to call it a temple of the sun ; 
but in this case there is some support for the suppo- 
sition in the Sanscrit meaning of the word Martand. 
That, however, does not throw any light upon its age ; 
and we may as well ascribe it to the.Pandu dynasty as 
to any other period of ancient history. Kashmir may 
have been the mountain-retreat where Pandu himself 
died before his five sons began to enact the scenes of 
the Mahabharata ; but modern Indian archaeologists 
have got into a way of constructing serious history out 
of very slight and dubious references. This is not to 
be wondered at, because the first synthetical inquiries, 
as conducted by Lassen in particular, yielded such 
magnificent historical results, that later antiquaries 
have been under a natural temptation to raise startling 
edifices out of much more slender and dubious material. 
Hiigel's date is quite as good as that of A.D. 370 ; and 
where all is pretty much speculation, we are not called 
upon to decide. 

But sufficient is dimly seen in the mists of antiquity 
to reveal something of the past, as we stand by this 
ancient temple and gaze over the Valley of Roses. A 
temple such as Martand, and the city which once 
stood in its neighbourhood, would not, in all proba- 
bility have found a place on this plateau except at a 
period when the Valley was a great lake. Hence we 
may presume that this temple and city of the Pandus 
belonged to a very ancient period, when the inhabi- 
tants of Kashmir were located on the slopes of the 
mountains round a great, beautiful lake, more pic- 
turesquely surrounded than any sheet of water now 
existing upon the earth. The people were Indo- 



SC£NJtS IN KASHMIR. 335 

Aryans, retaining much_ of the simplicity and rich, 
powerful naturalness of the Vedic period, but civilised in 
a very high degree, and able to erect splendid temples 
to the Sun-god. Associated with their Aryan religion 
they indulged in the serpent- worship which they had 
adopted from more primitive races, and perhaps from 
the rude Turanians of the neighbouring abodes of 
snow. In these ancient times the people and rulers of 
Kashmir would be very effectually secluded from ag- 
gressive forces. No rapacious neighbours would be 
strong enough to disturb their family nationality ; and 
in their splendid climate, with a beautiful lake con- 
necting their various settlements, it is far from unlikely 
that the Aryans in Kashmir may have presented a 
powerful, natural, and art-loving development, analo- 
gous to that which, about the same period, they were 
beginning ta obtain in the favoured Isles of Greece. 
But, whether produced by natural or artificial causes — 
whether due to P'ate, or to a shortsighted desire for 
land — the disappearance of the lake and the desiccation 
of the valley, which tradition assigns to the year 266 
B.C., must have wrought a great change in their circum- 
stances, associated as it was with the increase of the 
warlike mountain-tribes around. Gradually the valley- 
plain would afford a more fertile and easih-worked soil 
than the slopes of the mountains, which were soon for- 
saken for it. The primitive serpent-worship and the 
natural Vedic religion would be affected by the evil 
Brahminism of the plains of India; and this, again, had 
to struggle against the rising influence of Budhism, 
which is unfavourable to warlike qualities. Tartar 
chiefs began to dispute the kingdom with Hindu dynas- 
ties ; fierce mountaineers in the Hindu Kush would 
greedily listen to rumours about the terrestrial para- 
dise, and there would be the commencement of that 



3 36 THE- ABODE OF SNO IV. 

state of hopeless vassalage which has condemned 
the Kashmiri- to centuries of misery, and developed 
in his character its falsity and feebleness. Nothing- 
more definite can be discerned of that early period 
except that the Kashmiris were a brave and warlike 
people ; and that, even then, its women were famous 
for their beauty, as illustrated by the legend of the 
two angels Harat and Marat, who were sent on earth 
by God to reform men by their example, but were 
ensnared by the beauty of a fair Kashmiri. Other 
countries are not without stories of the kind ; but to 
Kashmir it was reserved to corrupt the reforming angels 
by means of a simple courtesan. Mermaids, too, 
there appear to have been in the lake — the beau- 
tiful daughters of the serpent-gods, before whom even 
Brahmins trembled and were powerless. With the 
Mohammedans there comes a more troubled era. After 
an ineffectual attempt in the end of the tenth century, 
Mohammed of Ghuzni conquered Kashmir in the begin- 
ning of the eleventh century ; chiefs of Dardistan and 
kings of Tibet make incursions into it, and forcibly 
marry the daughters of its tottering Hindu monarchs ; 
even distant Turkistan sends vultures to the prey ; 
and the only heroism is displayed by Queen Rajputani, 
the last of its Hindu sovereigns, who rather than marry 
an usurping prime minister, upbraided him for his in- 
gratitude and treacher}^, and stabbed herself before 
him. The sixth of the Moslem monarchs, who suc- 
ceeded and who reigned in 1396 A.D., was the igno- 
rant zealot Sikander, nicknamed Bhutshikan or the 
Image-breaker, who devoted his energies to destroy- 
ing the ancient architecture and sculpture of Kashmir, 
and succeeded only too well in his endeavours. In 
the next centurv reigned the Badshali or Great King, 



SCENES IN KASHMIR. 337 

Zein-ul-abdin, who gave Kashmir its most celebrated 
manufacture, by introducing wool from Tibet and wea- 
vers from Turkistan, as also papier-mache work and 
the manufacture of paper. This extraordinary man 
reigned fifty-three years ; he was a patron of litera- 
ture, a poet and a lover of field-sports, as well as a most 
practical ruler, arid he gave the country a great impetus. 
This vantage-ground, however, was lost almost immedi- 
ately after his death, and, as he had foreseen, by the 
growing power of the native class of the Chaks, who 
soon rose to supreme power in Kashmir by placing them- 
selves at the head of the national party. Under one of 
their chiefs the valley asserted itself nobly and victori- 
ously against its external enemies ; but this advantage 
was soon lost through internal jealousies, enmities, and 
treachery ; and a request for assistance offered by one 
of the Chak chiefs afforded Akbar the pretext for con- 
quering the country and making it a part of the great 
Mogul Empire. 

On the way from Martand to Achibal I saw the only 
serpent which appeared before me in Kashmir ; but be- 
fore I could get hold of it, the wily creature had disap- 
peared in the grass ; and those who have closely observed 
serpents know how readily they do disappear, and how 
wonderfully the more innocuous ones, even the large 
rock-snakes, manage to conceal themselves from the 
human eye in short grass, where it might be thought that 
even a small snake could easily be detected. I have 
been instructed by Indian snake-charmers, who are 
rather averse to parting with their peculiar knowledge, 
and have tried my hand successfully on a small wild' 
cobra, between three and four feet in length, so I speak 
with knowledge and experience on this subject; but this 
Kashmir snake I refer to eluded my grasp. It was 
only about two and a half or three feet long, and had 

* . Y ' 



338 THE' ABODE OF SNOW. 

the appearance of a viper ; but I do not know what it 
was. The ganas, or apliia, is a species of viper which is 
said to be very dangerous, and is most dreaded by the 
people of the country. The~ latter name has suggested, 
and very properly suggests, the o^i9 of. the Greeks. 
Serpents are scarce in Kashmir, and do not at all in- 
terfere with the great pleasure of camping out in that 
country. There is more annoyance from leopards, espe- 
cially for people who have small dogs with them ; for the 
leopard has quite a mania for that sort of diet, and will 
not hesitate to penetrate into your tent at night in quest 
of his game. 

Achibal and Vernag are two delightful places, such 
as no other country in the world can present; but their 
general characteristics are so similar that I shall not 
attempt to describe them separately. They resemble 
the Shalimar and Nishat Gardens, to which I have 
already alluded, but are more secluded, more beautiful, 
and more poetic. Bal means a place, and Ash is the 
satyr of Kashmir traditions. Ver, according to Elmslie, 
is the name of the district in which the summer palace 
is situated ;■ but it is properly vir, which may be either 
the Kashmir word for the weeping willow (which would 
suit it well enough), or an old Aryan form for the Latin 
vir. On the latter supposition it would be the haunt of 
the man-serpents, and it is exactly the place that would 
have suited them in ancient or any times. 

Both Achibal and Vernag were favourite haunts of 
our friend Jehangir, and of his wife Nur Jahan, the Light 
of the World. If that immortal pair required any proof 
of their superiority, it would be found in the retreats 
which they chose for themselves, and which mark them 
out as above tJie level of ordinary and even royal 
humanit}'. At Achibal, a spring of water, the largest 
in Kashmir, rises at the head of the beautiful pleasure- 



SCENES IN KASHMIR. 339 

garden, underneath an overshadowing cliff, and this is 
supposed to be the reappearance of a river which dis- 
appears in the mountains some -miles above. At Ver- 
nag, also, a large' spring bubbles up in almost icy coldness 
beneath a gigantic cliff, fringed with birch and light ash, 
that— 

" Pendant from the brow 
Of yon dim cave, in seeming silence make 
A soft eye-music of slow- wjvving boughs." 

It is more specially interesting, however, as the source 
of the Jhelam or Hydaspes ; and as I sat beside it on an 
evening of delicious repose, an old schoolboy recollec- 
tion came to mind, and it was pleasant to find that, if I 
could not venture to claim entirely the 

" Integer vitse scelerisque purus," 

yet I had escaped the Maurian darts, and had been en- 
abled to travel in safety — 

" Sive per Syrtes iter sestuosas, 
Sive facturus per inhospitalera 
Caucasum, vel quae loca fabulosuj 
Lambit Hydaspes.'' 



CHAPTER X. 

THE AFGHAN BORDER. 

Before leaving Kashmir I must devote a paragraph to 
its two most famous sheets of water, the Manasbal, and 
the VVular Lake. . They are both on the usual way out 
from Srinagar, which is also the usual way to it, and are 
seen by most visitors to the valley. 

The Manasbal is called the most beautiful, but is 
rather the most picturesque, lake in Kashmir. It lies 
close to the Jhelam on the north-west, and is connected 
with that river by a canal only about a mile long, through 
which boats can pass. This little lake is not much larger 
than Grasmere, being scarcely three miles long by one 
broad ; but its shores are singularly suggestive of peace- 
fulness and solitude. Picturesque mountains stand round 
a considerable portion of it, and at one point near they 
rise to the height of lO,ooo feet, while snowy summits 
are visible beyond. In its clear deep-green water the 
surrounding scenery is seen most beautifully imaged. 
There being so little wind in Kashmir, and the surround- 
ing trees and mountains being so high, this is one of the 
most charming features of its placid lakes. Wordsworth 
has assigned the occasional calmness of its waters as 
one of the reasons why he claims that the Lake Country 
of England is more beautiful than Switzerland, where 
the lakes are seldom seen in an unruffled state ; but in 
this respect the Valley of Roses far surpasses our En^ 
lish district, for its lakes are. habitually calm : for hours 
at a time they present an almost absolute stillness ; they 



THE AFGHAN BORDER, 341 

are beautifully clear, and the mountains around them are 
not only of great lieight and picturesque shape, but, 
except in the height of summer, are half covered with 
snow ; the clouds are of a more dazzling whiteness than 
in England, and the sky is of a deeper blue. There, most 
emphatically, if I may be allowed slightly to alter 
Wordsworth's lines — 

" The visible scene 
May enter unawares into the mind, 
"With all its solemn imagery, its woods, 
Its snow, and that divinest heaven received 
Into the bosom of the placid lake." 

The poet just quoted has tried to explain the singular 
effect upon the mind of such mirrored scenes by saying, 
that "the imagination by their aid is carried into recesses 
of feeling otherwise impenetrable." And he goes on to 
explain that the reason for this is, that "the heavens are 
not only brought down into the bosom of the earth, but 
that the earth is mainly looked at and thought of through 
the medium of a purer element. The happiest time is 
when the equinoctial gales have departed ; but their fury 
may probably be called to mind by the sight of a few 
shattered boughs, whose leaves do not differ in colour 
from the faded foliage of the stately oaks from which 
these relics of the storm depend : all else speaks of 
tranquillity ; not a breath of air, no restlessness of insects, 
and not a moving object perceptible, except the clouds 
gliding in the depths of the lake, or the traveller passing 
along, an inverted image, whose motion seems governed 
by the quiet of a time to which its archetype, the living 
person, is perhaps insensible : or it may happen that the 
figure of one of the larger birds, a raven or a heron, is 
crossing silently among the reflected clouds, while the 
noise of the real bird, from the element aloft, gently 
awakens in the spectator the recollection of appetites 



342 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

and instincts, pursuits and occupations, that deform 
and agitate fhe world, yet have no power to prevent 
nature from putting on an aspect capable of satisfying 
the most intense cravings for the tranquil, the lovely, 
and the perfect, to which man, the noblest of her creatures, 
is subject." But the reasons thus suggested, rather than 
explicitly pointed out, are scarcely sufficient to explain 
the singular charm of a beautiful upland and cloudland 
scene reflected in a deep, calm, clear lake. Its most 
powerful suggestion is that of an under-world into which 
all things beautiful must pass, and where there is re- 
served for them a tranquillity and permanence unknown 
on earth. We seem to look into that under-world ; the 
beauty of the earth appears under other conditions than 
those of our upper world ; and we seem to catch a 
glimpse of the abiding forms of life, and of a more 
spiritual existence into which we ourselves may pass, yet 
one that will not be altogether strange to us. Some 
of our latest speculators have attempted to prove the 
existence of such a world even from the admitted facts 
of physical science ; and in all ages it has been the 
dream of poetry and the hope of religion that beyond 
the grave, and perhaps -beyond countless ages of pheno- 
menal existence, or separated from us only by the veil 
of mortality, there is another and more perfect form of 
life — "the pure, eternal, and unchangeable" of Plato as 
well as of Christianity. No argument can be drawn in 
favour of such views from the under-world of a placid 
lake ; but the contemplation of it is suggestive, and is 
favourable to that mood of mind in which we long and 
hope for a land where 

*' Ever pure and mirror-bright and even, 
Life amidst tlie immortals glides away ; 
Moons are waning, generations changing, 
Their celestial life blooms everlasting, 
Changeless 'mid a ruined world's decay." 



THE AFGHAN BORDER. 343 

The VVular is the largest remnant of that great lake 
which once filled the Vale of Kashmir, and it too must 
disappear ere any long period of time elapses. Captain 
Bates says, correctly that it " is a lake simply because its 
bottom is lower than the bed of the Jhelam ; it will dis- 
appear by degrees as the bed of the pass at Baramula 
becomes more worn away by the river ; its extent is 
perceptibly becoming more circumscribed by the depo- 
sition of soil and detritus on its margin." This is not 
at all unlikely, as the average depth is only about twelve 
feet. Its greatest length is twelve miles, and its greatest 
breadth ten, so that it is by no means so grand a sheet 
of water as that of Geneva ; but there is something in 
its character which reminds one of Lake Leman, and 
arises probably from the stretch of water which it pre- 
sents, and the combined softness and grandeur of the 
scenery around. Lofty mountains rise almost imme- 
diately from its northern and eastern sides ; but there is 
room all round the lake for the innumerable villages 
which enliven its shore. Calm as it usually is, furious 
storms often play upon its surface, and in one of these 
Ranjit Singh lost 300 of the boats carr)-ing his retinue 
and effects. In the beginning of spring some of the 
wildfowl of this and the other lakes of Kashmir take 
flight to the distant valleys ofYarkund and Kashgar ; 
and, in connection with that migration, the Kashmiris 
have a very curious story. They say that the birds, being 
aware of the difficulty of finding food in the streams 
of Tibet, which have only stony banks and beds, take 
with them a supply of the singhara, or water-nut of 
Kashmir, for food on their journey. Such forethought 
is rare among the lower creation. I once, however, had 
a large dog, which, when it saw me ready to start on a 
journey, would try and get hold of a bone or something 
of the kind, and take that down with it to the railway, 



344 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

in order to relieve the tedium of confinement in the 
dog-box ; 9.nd, of course, animals bring food to their 
young. 

At Baramula I took leave of the great valley of Kash- 
mir. From thence a path leads up to the mountain- 
town of Gulmarg, the most favourite of the sanitariums 
of Kashmir, and from whence a splendid view may be 
obtained of the wonderful 26,000-feet peak of Nanglia 
Parbat, which rises about a hundred miles to the north, 
between the districts of Chilas and Astor. Immediately 
below Baramula, and after leaving the great valley, the 
Jhelam changes its character, and becomes a swift, 
furious river, on which boats cannot be used at all, 
except at one or two calmer places, w^here they are used 
for ferries, being attached by ropes to the bank. Along 
these are paths on both sides of the river, but that on 
the left or southern bank is much preferable, both be- 
cause the bridle-road is better, and it is much more 
shaded. Seven easy marches took me to the town of 
Mozafarabad, and I did not enjoy that part of my jour- 
ney the less that I have almost nothing to say about it. 
The scenery is most beautiful, and fills the mind with a 
sense of calm pleasure. Though the valley is narrow, it 
is thickly wooded, and the dark forest glades .spread out, 
here and there, into more open spaces, with green mea- 
dows. Great black precipices alternate with wooded 
slopes ; there are beautiful halting-places under immense 
trees, and the path often descends into dark cool*gorges, 
where there are picturesque bridges over the foaming 
mountain streams. It mu.st be delightful to come on 
this Jhelam valley in April or Ma)' from the burned-up 
plains of India, and it might revive even a dying man. 
Among the trees there were flocks of monkeys, which 
drove my Tibetan dogs frantic ; and bears are to be 
found in the wild mountain vallevs which branch off 



THE AFGHAN BORDER. 345 

from this larger valley. The rest-houses erected by the 
Maharajah of Kashmir were not free from insects, espe- 
cially fleas, and the bridle-path went up and down more 
than was strictly necessar}^ ; but I hear better house? 
have been erected, or are in course of erection, and the 
rOad is being improved. As no charge was made for 
stopping in the rest-houses, one could not complain 
of them ; but the new houses are to be charged for, 
like travellers' bungalows in British India. At one of 
the wildest parts of the river, a Kashmiri said to me, 
" Decco," or, " Look here, Sahib ! " and plunged from a 
high rock into the foaming stream. The most obvious 
conclusion was that he had found life and the Maha- 
rajah's officers too much for him ; but he reappeared a 
long way down, tossed about by the river, and displaA'ed 
the most wonderful swimming I have ever seen. 

Mozafarabad is in the corner of the junction between 
the Jhelam and the Kishen Ganga, or the river Krishna. 
The valley of the latter stream is, for the most part, a 
mere chasm among the mountains, and some of its 
scenery is said to be exceedingly wild and beautiful. 
Mozafarabad is an important town, with about twelve 
hundred families, and a largefort, and stands on the last 
and lowest ridge of the mountains which form the water- 
shed between the two rivers. Here I left the road, 
which takes on to the hill-station of Mari and to the 
Panjab plains at Rawal Pindi, and crossed the Kishen 
Ganga, as well as the Jhelam, in order to proceed to 
Abbotabad and the Afghan border. 

Thus I have now to enter upon an entirely different 
district of country from any I have yet described in 
these chapters. We have to go along the base of the 
Hindu Kush, below mountains into which the English 
traveller is not allowed to enter,and which are peopled 
by hardy warlike mountaineers, very different in charac- 



346 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

ter from the placid Tibetans and effeminate Kashmiris. 
The first district through which I have to pass is called 
the Hazara, and extends from near Mozafarabad to the 
Indus where it issues from the Hindu Kush ; the second 
is the Yusufzai district, which occupies the triangle 
formed by the Indus, the Kaubul river, and the moun- 
tains just referred to ; and beyond these districts I have 
only to speak of Peshawar, and of an excursion a short 
way up the famous Khyber Pass. All that border has 
seen a great deal of fighting by British troops — and 
fighting without end before any British appeared on the 
scene, or even existed ; and even before Alexander the 
Great took the rock-fortress of Aornos, which we have 
to visit under guard of Afghan chiefs and horsemen in 
chain-armour. 

Mozafarabad is only 2470 feet high, and a steep 
mountain ridge separates it from the more elevated 
valley of the Kunhar river, which is inhabited by 
Afghans who are under the dominion of Great Britain. 
On passing from the Kashmir to the English border, 
I found an excellent path, on which mountain-guns 
might easily be carried, and descended on the village 
of Gurhi Hubli, where large-bodied, often fair-com- 
plexioned, Afghans filled the streets. This place is 
too close to the border of Afghanistan to be altogether 
a safe retreat ; but there are a large number of armed 
policemen about it. Scorn me not, romantic reader, if 
my chief association connected with it is that of the 
intense pleasure of finding myself in a travellers' bun- 
galow ouce more. Our estimate of these much-abused 
edifices depends very much on the side we take them 
from. After having snow for the carpet of your tent, 
and visits at night from huge Tibetan bears, there is 
some satisfaction in finding yourself quite safe from 
everything except some contemptible rat or a (compara- 



THE AFGHAN BORDER. 347 

lively) harmless grey scorpion. There is also comfort 
in being free from the insects of the Kashmir rest- 
houses. People who have never lived in anything but 
houses must lose half the pleasure of living in a house. 
How the first man who made a dwelling for himself 
must have gloated over his wretched contrivance, until 
some stronger man came and took possession of it ! 
But the bungalows of the Hazara district are particu- 
larly well built and luxurious, just as if distinguished 
travellers were constantly in the habit of visiting that 
extremely out-of-the-way part of the world ; and their 
lofty rooms afforded most grateful coolness and shade; 
while my wearied servants were delighted to remit the 
business of cooking for me to the Government klian- 
saniaJi, while reserving to themselves the right and plea- 
sure of severely criticising his operations and tendering 
to him any amount of advice. 

The next day took me along a beautiful road over 
another but a low mountain pass, and winding among 
hills which were thickly covered w:ith pines and cedars. 
The forest here was truly magnificent, and perfect still- 
ness reigned under its shade. Emerging from that, I 
came down on the broad Pukli valley, on the other side 
of which, but at some distance, were visible the wooded 
heights of the Mataban, or Black Mountain, which was 
the scene of one of the most bloodless of our hill- 
campaigns. I stopped that night of the 4th November 
at Mansera, and witnessed a total eclipse of the moon, 
which was then at the full. This seemed to cause a 
good deal of consternation among the people of the 
village, and they moaned and wailed as if the heavens 
and the earth were in danger of passing away. 

Another day took me to Abbotabad, which is a con- 
siderable military station, and commands a large portion 
of the frontier. It is 4166 feet high, and being a little 



348 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

above the thirt}^- fourth degree of north latitude, it has a 
cool and fine climate. A good deal of rain fell during 
the few days that I was there, and the air felt very much 
like that of a wet English September or October ; while 
the church and the character of the houses gave the place 
quite an English look. Rising close above it, at the 
height of 9000 feet, there is the sanitarium of Tandiani, 
which can easily be reached in a very few hours, so that 
the officers stationed at this place are particularly fortu- 
nate. I wonder it is not more taken advantage of for 
European troops. Not even excepting artillerymen, all 
the troops there were Goorkhas, Panjabis, or Hindu- 
sthanis ; but no doubt there are military reasons for 
this, Abbotabad being so far from any railway: but it 
stands to reason that an important frontier station of this 
kind would be much the better of an English force. 

Anglo-Indian society shows to advantage in these 
secluded military stations, and I was at once made to 
feel quite at home by the officers and their families at 
Abbotabad. I had the advantage, too, of being the 
guest of General Keyes, an officer who distinguished 
himself greatly in the Umbeyla campaign, in which he 
was wounded, and who commanded the whole of the 
frontier forces, from Kashmir round the northern border 
to Peshawar, and from Peshawar, excluding the district 
of that name, down to Dehra Ghazi'Khan, a little below 
Multan. This, of course, involves the direction of many 
regiments; and the officer commanding the frontier is 
not properly under the Commander-in-chief in India, 
but under the direction of the Panjab Government. In 
the Peshawar district, which occurs in the midst of his 
border, the state of matters is difTerent, all the large 
number of troops there being directly under the Com- 
mander-in-chief That seems an anomalous state of 
affairs ; but the reason for it is, that the Afehan frontier 



THE AFGHAN BORDER. 349 

being exceedingly difficult to manage, the Government 
of the Panjab is supposed to require a large body of 
troops on that frontier at its own direct disposal, while 
it is equally necessary for the Commander-in-chief in 
India to have a large force under his orders at Peshawar, 
which fronts the Khyber Pass, and is the key of our 
trans-Indus possessions. 

Abbotabad I saw when it was in a rather lively state, 
there being a marriage, a death, and sundry other minor 
events, during my very brief stay there. It was also 
much exercised by a ritualistic clergyman, who availed 
himself of the rare occasion of a marriage to act in a 
manner which threw the whole small community into a 
state of excitement, and who insisted on the bride and 
bridegroom partaking of the sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper on the morning of their wedding-day. When 
chaplains in India give themselves the rein, they can 
indulge in many curious freaks. At another Indian 
station which I visited, my host told • me that, at an 
evening party at his (my host's) house, ^ the chaplain 
marched his own bishop before a large cheval-glass, and 
asked him if he had seen the latest portrait of the gorilla 1 
It is a pity that the good bishop had not the presence 
of mind to say that he recognised a resemblance in the 
figure standing behind him. But the Abbotabad chap- 
lain's proceedings did little more than give a zest to the 
festivities connected with the marriage, which was that 
of a daughter of the popular officer commanding the 
station ; but ere they came to a close, they were ter- 
ribly interfered with by the death of Captain Snow, who 
expired suddenly from heart-disease — a malady which 
seems to be singularly common in the north of India — 
almost immediately after returning to his bungalow from 
the communion service which the chaplain had insisted 
on holding the morning of the marriage-day. He left a 



3SO THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

young widow; and I have since noticed that other mem- 
bers of those Abbotabad parties, who were full of life and 
humour, and distinguished by more graceful charms, 
have unexpectedly passed away. 

From Abbotabad I proceeded in three easy marches 
to Torbela, where the dangerous part of the frontier com- 
mences. Up to Torbela I had only a couple of sowars, 
or native horse-soldiers, with me ; but from the Indus 
on to the fort of Hoti Mardan, I was guarded with as 
much care as if I were three viceroys rolled into one. 
As a matter of convenience, even a single sowar riding 
behind one is a nuisance to a meditative traveller, espe- 
cially when the M.T. is suffering from rheumatism in 
the back, which makes riding painful to him ; and I 
would gladly have dispensed with the escorts which 
were provided for me. It is not usual to allow any 
Englishman, except officers on duty, to go along this part 
of the frontier, which touches on the territory of the 
Akoond of Swat ; and I was enabled to do so only by 
the special permission of the Viceroy and the Comman- 
der-in-chief. The border authorities were thus respon- 
sible for my safety, and they took care to see that no 
harm befell me from the wild tribes of the mountains 
round the base of which I skirted. The reason of this 
anxiety was thus explained to me by a humorous officer : 
" Do not suppose," he said, " that the Panjab authorities 
mean to do you any special honour ; they probably wish 
you far enough. The case is this : if the hillmen get 
hold of you — and they would be very likely to make a 
dash at you over the border if you went unprotected — 
they would carry you up into the mountains, and would 
then write to the Panjab Government offering to ex- 
change you against some of their own budmasJies which 
we have in prison. The Government would pro- 
bably take no notice of this communication ; and, after 



THE AFGHAN BORDEE, 351 

the lapse of a little time, there would come down a 
second letter from the S\vat hillmen, repeating- the pro- 
posal, and containing the first joint of your little finger. 
The next day^another letter would come with the second 
joint. Now, you see, it would be extremely unpleasant 
for the Panjab Government to be receiving joints of your 
fingers, day after day, in official letters." 

Torbela is a village, or rather a congeries of small 
villages, and a large fortified police Thana on one side 
of the Indus. Opposite to it, and divided from this 
extreme corner of our territory by the river, there is. the 
wild mountain Afghan district of Bunnair ; and imme- 
diately opposite Torbela there is the fighting village of 
Kubbul or Kabal, chock-full of murderers and other 
• fugitives from British justice; while, on the same side, 
three miles farther up, and also on the right bank of the 
Indus, there is Sitana, for long famous as the headquar- 
ters of the Wahabhi and other fanatics, who kept up 
an agitation in India for b. Jehad, or holy war, and are 
supposed by some to have instigated the assassination 
of Lord Mayo and of Mr Justice Norman. 

It occurred to me very forcibly here that now or 
never was my chance of crossing the border and seeing- 
an Afghan village in its primitive simplicit}-. The 
British Government does not allow its subjects to cross 
the border, owing to the above-mentioned accident 
which may happen to their fingers ; but I thought 
there could be nothing wrong in my crossing to a 
village which was in sight of our own territory, and 
could easily be destroyed. The next day I was to be 
handed over to the guards of the Yusufzai district ; 
and, meanwhile, had only to deal with tiie native 
, Thanadar in command of the armed police. That 
functionary, however, would not countenance any such 
proposal, and told me that Kubbul was a particularly 



THE ABODE OF SNOV/. 



bad place to go to ; that a few nights before it had 
come over and attacked one of the villages on his side 
of the Indus, and that, at the moment, it was fighting 
within itself. 

This looked bad ; but fortunately, a few minutes after, 
one of my servants came up to the roof of the Thana, on 
which I was sitting, and told me a curious story about 
the Jemadar, the second in command. That hero had 
once been in this or some other police Thana, in which 
a considerable sum of money was lying, when it was 
attacked at night by a number of Afghans from beyond 
the border. Judging the attacking force to be over- 
powering, the Thanadar and his police fled, probably no 
resistance being made to that, as the money was the 
object of the raid ; but old Hagan, as I shall call the 
Jemadar, after the hero of the " Nibelungen Lied," who 
fought a similar fight, but in a less successful manner, 
remained behind, concealed in the darkness of the night 
and of the Thana. Before- the Afghans had broken, into 
the place where the money was, he attacked them single- 
handed with a tremendous sword which he had, cutting 
down the only torchman they had at the first blow, and 
then slashing away at them indiscriminately. He had 
the advantage of knowing that every one about him was 
an enemy ; while the Afghans, taken by surprise, and 
confused in the darkness, did not know how many 
assailants they had to deal with, and began hewing at 
■ each other, until the cry got up that the devil was 
amongst them, and those who were able to do so fled. 
The Assistant Commissioner of the district came over in 
hot haste next morning with a body of mounted police, 
expecting to find the treasury rifled ; but, instead of 
that, he found my old friend the Jemadar strutting up^ 
and down the Thana, sword in hand, while a score of 
Afghans were lying dead or dying round him. 



THE AFGHAN BORDER. 353 

On hearing this, it immediateh- struck me that Hagan 
was exactly the man intended to assist me to Kubbul, 
so I got him aside and asked him if he would go. 
Would he go ! Repeating this question, a strange wild 
light broke out of the old man's eyes; he unsheathed 
his tremendous blade, of which it might well be said, 
that— 

"The sword which seemed fit for archangel to wield, 
Was light in his terrible hand ; " 

and eagerly assured me that if I would only say the 
word he would go with me not only to Kubbul, but to 
Swat, which was supposed to be the last place in the 
world that an Englishman in his senses would dream of 
visiting. T should have been glad to have accepted this 
proposal of going to Swat, but felt bound in honour to 
the high officials who had allowed me to go along the 
frontier, not to take anything which might look like an 
unfair advantage of their kindness. On hearing of our 
intention to cross the river, the Thanadar — who seemed 
to be a little in awe of his subordinate of the midnight 
massacre, but who was a proud Mohammedaq who did 
not like to seem backward in courage — said that he 
would go also, and, after a little delay, produced a tall 
red-bearded old man, who had friends on the other side, 
and would accompany us. I fancy, however, that he 
must have reasoned with the Jemadar in private upon 
the subject, because, before starting, that worthy took 
me aside and said that we had better not sta>' long in 
Kubbul, because when the people in the mountains 
heard of our being there they might come down upon 
us. Our small party was increased by a somewhat un- 
willing policeman. It was well armed, and though I 
preferred to trust to the far-famed hospitality of the 
Afghans, and make no show of arms, I carried more 



354 THE ABODE OF SNO W. 

than one weapon of offence concealed about me, and in 
handy positions. 

So we crossed the splendid and rapid stream of the 
Indus in a large carved boat of white wood. The fight- 
ing village of Kubbul rose up almost from the water's 
edge, and covered both sides of a long ridge which ran 
parallel with the stream, the narrow valley behind that 
ridge being partly occupied by a few grain fields, imme- 
diately behind which were high bare savage mountains, 
the habitat of those individuals who are supposed to 
send men's fingers in official letters. All male Kubbul 
apparently (female portion not being visible, if indeed 
it exists at all, which I am not in a position to affirm) 
had turned out to receive us, and lined the shore in a 
state of great curiosity. On landing, some rupees were 
presented to me as a token of obeisance, and I touched 
them instead of pocketing them, as the formal act in- 
vited me to do ; but which would have been considered 
■very bad manners on my part, and would probably have 
sent' all feelings and obligations of hospitality to the 
winds. We were then taken over the ridge into the 
little valley behind, and the head men showed me with 
great complacency the effects of the warfare in which 
they had been engaged on the previous day. What 
appeared to have taken place was that one end of the 
fighting village of Kubbul had blown out the other end, 
the place being in a state of too high pressure. It was 
divided into two parts, and my friends had made 
breaches in the wall of their neighbours' half and de- 
stroyed the houses next to that wall. They also showed 
me a mud tower which they had taken and dismantled ; 
and this was done with so much pride that I remarked 
they must be very fond of fighting, on which they 
assumed quite a different tone, and lamented the sad 
necessity they had been under of having recourse to 



THE AFGHAN BORDER. 



355 



arms — a necessity which was entirely due to the bad 
and desperate character of their neighbours. On this, 
even the solemn Thanadar smiled to me, for they them- 
selves were about as ruffianly and desperate looking a 
lot as could well be conceived of. Where the enemy 
was all this time I cannot say. Perhaps he was up in 
the hills, or keeping quiet in the dilapidated part of the 
village ; but he could not have been far off, for the fight- 
ing was renewed that afternoon after we left, and heavy 
firing went on. I took care not to inquire after him. It 
was quite enough to have one party to deal with ; and 
it would have been impolitic to have been appealed to 
in the dispute, or to have shown any interest in the van- 
quished. 

After this we sat down in a courtyard, with a large 
crowd round us, and I was asked if I would wait while 
they prepared breakfast for me ; and they pressed me 
to do so. On this the old Jemadar gave me a signifi- 
cant look, so I compromised the matter by asking for 
some milk only; and very rich milk it was. Many of 
the men seated round us were fugitives from Ensrlish 
justice, and they were not slow to proclaim the fact. 
One man told me that he had committed a murd.er seven 
years before in his own village, on our side of the Indus; 
and he asked me whether, seeing so long a period had 
elapsed, he might not go back there with safety, adding 
that his conduct since then had been remarkably good : 
he had not killed any one since, except in open fight. 
I referred him to the Thanadar, who, in an alarmed 
manner, refused to take any responsibility in such a 
matter.. Mr Downes tells me that when he tried to go 
from Peshawar to Kafiristan, and was seized, bound, 
robbed, and sent back, after he had got twenty miles 
beyond the frontier, and mainly at the instigation of the 
Peshawar police, the Afghans who seized him asked 



356 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 



him if he had committed murder or any serious crime ; 
because in that case the}^ would not rob him or send 
him back, but would either protect him or let him go on 
among the mountains as he might desire ; but, unfor- 
tunately for his enterprise, my friend could not claim 
the necessary qualifications. Behram Khan, who mur- 
dered Major Macdonald this year of my journey and 
immediately crossed the frontier, has never been deli- 
vered up or punished, though the Amir of Kaubul has 
professed great desire to get hold of him, and has issued 
strict orders for his apprehension. The having com- 
mitted any serious crime, and being a fugitive from 
justice, will secure protection am_ong. the Afghans ; but 
they have a special respect for murderers. Even that, 
however, is not a sufficient protection beyond a certain 
point ; for, as Dr Bellew says, " if the guest be worth it, 
he is robbed or murdered by his late host as soon as 
beyond the protecting limits of the village boundary, if 
not convoyed by badraga of superior strength." The 
badraga is a body of armed men who are paid to con- 
voy travellers through the limits of their own territory ; 
so that, after all, the protection is in great part of a 
venal kind. 

^ The men who crowded round us did not carry their 
swords or matchlocks, but they all had daggers, and 
some of them had been slightly wounded in the fighting 
of the previous day. Most of the daggers- were ver}' 
formidable instruments, being about a foot and a half 
long, thick at the base, tapering gradually, very sharp 
at the point, sometimes, round or three-cornered, slightly 
curved, and with thick, strong handles, capable of afford- 
ing an adequate grasp. They are not like the orna- 
mental articles of the kind which we see in Europe, but, 
are meant for use, and would slither into one with great 
ease, and make a deep, fatal wound. When these noble 



THE AFGHAN BORDER. 357 

borderers stab in the stomach, as they are fond of doing, 
they have a hideous way of working the dagger in the 
wound before withdrawal, in order to make assurance 
doubly sure. There was really, however, not the least 
danger from these people, unless from some extreme 
fanatic amongst them, who would probably be kept 
away from me; and though Sitana was within sight, I 
learned that the colony of discontented Indians there 
had been removed further into the mountains, as the 
agitation they kept up in our territory transgressed even 
the liberal bounds of Afghan hospitality. The question 
may well be raised as to the expediency of allowing 
fugitives from English justice to look on us in safety 
from immediately across the border; but it is at least 
obvious that we could not well interfere with them with- 
out departing from the whole line of policy which we 
have pursued towards Afghanistan of late years. That 
policy may be — and, I think, is — a mistaken one ; but, 
if adhered to at all, we require to treat the border as a 
line which neither party should transgress in ordinary 
circumstances. 

On recrossing the river, a number of the youth of 
Kubbul accompanied us on mussaks, or inflated hides, 
on which they moved with considerable rapid it}% the 
front of the mussak being in form something like a 
swan's breast, and gliding easily through or over the 
water. Some of these skins were so small that they 
must have been those of sheep or young calves, and 
each bore a single swimmer, whose body was thus kept 
out of the water while his limbs were free to paddle in 
it. From this point to its origin, about the Tibetan 
Kailas, great part of the long sweep of the Indus is 
unknown to Europeans, and its course is set down on 
our maps by a conjectural dotted line. We know it 
again where it enters Baltistan, and as it passes through 



358 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

Ludak, but that is all. Indus incolis SindiLS appellatiis, 
said Pliny, and the Sanscrit meaning of the word is said 
to be " the sea ; " but the Aryans who spoke Sancrit 
must have had rather vague ideas as to what the sea 
was. As the Sutlej is supposed to proceed from the 
mouth of a crocodile, so the Indus comes from that of 
a lion. Edward Thornton, in his "Gazetteer of the 
Countries adjacent to India," has collected and repro- 
duced all the information of any importance we have in 
regard to this great and historically interesting river, 
and I must refer my reader to that work for the details, 
as also to General Cunningham's " Ladak." It has been 
measured near Torbela, and found to be lOO yards 
broad ; but at Torbela I should think it was about 200 
yards, though the current was rapid and deep. Between 
that place and Attock it is so shallow in winter, when it 
is not fed by melting snow, that there are several points 
at which it can be forded. From this point, also, boats 
can go down all the way to the sea, as they can also 
from very near Kaubul, floating down the Kaubul river 
till it reaches the Indus. 

Starting from Torbela on the afternoon of this day, I 
went about seven or eight miles down the left bank of 
the Indus to a ferry there, nearly opposite the mighty 
rock of Pihur, which rises on the opposite shore, or 
rather almost out of the bed of the river, for in seasons 
of flood this rock is surrounded by the stream. Here 
I was passed over from the protection of the Huzara 
authorities to those of the Yusufzai district. Crossing 
the great river in another of those large high-pooped 
carved boats of white wood, such as, in all probability, 
bore Alexander the Great across the Indus, on the 
opposite bank a very strange sight appeared which 
looked as if it might have been taken out of the 
Middle Ages, or even out of the time of the Grecian 



THE AFGHAN BORDER. 359 

conqueror. The boundary-line between our territory 
and that of Afghanistan here leaves the Indus and runs 
along the foot of the Hindu Kush, and one is supposed 
now to be in special need of being taken care of; so I 
U-as received on landing, and with great dignity, by a 
number of Afghan Khans belonging to our side of the 
border, by a native officer of police, a body of mounted 
police, and a number of the retainers of the Khans, 
some of whom were horsemen in chain-armour. 

Nothing could be more picturesque than the scene. It 
was now evening, and through the clear air the red light 
of the setting sun flamed over the yellow sands of the 
Indus, and burned on the high summits of the wild 
mountains around. The Afghan chiefs, with the re- 
tainers beside them, and their fine horses, were pic- 
turesque enough figures ; but the most picturesque 
feature in the scene was, undoubted!}', the men in chain- 
armour, who carried immensely long spears, rode the 
wildest and shaggiest looking of horses, wore brass 
helmets on their heads over crimson handkerchiefs, and 
galloped about between us and the hills, shaking their 
long spears, as if an immediate descent of the enemy 
was expected and they were prepared to do battle for 
us to the death. Unfortunately, the enemy never did 
put in an appearance all the way along the border ; 
but the men in armour did very well instead, and im- 
parted a -delightful sense of danger to the mysterious 
mountains. 

The rock of Pihur is between 300 and 4CO feet high, 
and it would be a pleasant place of residence were it not 
for the wind, which blows very violently up or down the 
Indus valley, and did so all night when I was there. 
Here I began to realise for the first time (belief being 
quite a different thing) that I was of some importance 
in the world. Guards slept in the veranda of the bun- 



36o THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

galow in which I v/as, though it was placed on the 
extreme summit of the rock, and looked down preci- 
pices ;, guards paced round it all night ; there was a 
guard half-way down the rock ; another guard at the 
foot of the rock ; and when I looked down to the 
valley below, in the morning before day-break, there 
were my friends in chain-armour riding round the rock 
in the moonlight, but slowly, and drooping in their 
saddles as if they were asleep and recruiting after the 
fatigues of the day. 

In'om Pihiir w^e rode about twenty miles along the 
base of the mountains to the Thana of Swabi, passing 
through the village of Topi, the Khan of which accom- 
panied us on the journey. The mountains here and all 
along the border have a very singular effect, because 
they rise so suddenly above the plain. Our trans-Indus 
territory is here almost a dead level, being broken only 
by water-courses, at this season dry, which descends 
abruptly below the surface of the plain. From this wide 
level, which is scarcely 1 800 feet above the sea, the 
mountains of the Hindu Kush rise quite abruptly for 
thousands of feet, range towering above range till we. 
come to the line of snowy summits. As I have already 
pointed out, these mountains are really a continuation 
of the Himaliya, being separated from the latter by the 
gorge of the Indus, and running more directly to the 
west. Sir A. Burnes has told us that the name Hindu 
Kush is unknown to the Afghans, but that there is a 
particular peak, and also a pass, bearing that name. 
This mountain is far from our present neighbourhood, 
being between Afghanistan and Turkestan. A good deal 
of doubt hangs over the derivation and meaning of the 
word ; but, fancifully or not, the Kush has been iden- 
tified with the Caucasus of Pliny, and the whole of the 
immense range from the Himaliya to the Paropamisan 



THE AFGHAN BORDER. 361 

Mountains, is known in this country as the Indian Cau- 
casus. It is supposed to have a maxinium height of 
about 20,000 feet, but very little really is known about 
it, and that adds to the interest of the range. Its highest 
peak or cluster of peaks appears to be the Koh-i-Baba, 
the Hindu Kush proper, between Kaubul and Bami'an ; 
and in the near neighbourhood of the British border 
there seem to be no peaks quite 16,060 feet high, 
though some way back from it, beyond Swat, there is 
one of 18,564, and another of 19,132, the altitudes of 
these heights, I presume, having being taken from 
points within our own territory, or that of Kashmir. 
In geological formation these mountains do not seem to 
differ much from the Himaliya, being chiefly composed 
of quartz, granite, gneiss, mica-schist, slates, and lime- 
stone ; but they are richer in metals — namely, gold, 
lead, copper, tin, iron, and antimony. The most re- 
markable difference between the two ranges is, that in 
their western portion the Hindu Kush are not backed to 
the north by elevated table-lands like those of Tibet, 
but sink abruptly into the low plains of Turkestan. 
They are even more destitute of wood than the Hi- 
maliya, but have more valleys, which are sometimes 
better than mere gorges. 

The Thana at Swabi is a very large strong place, 
with high walls, and could stand a siege by the moun- 
taineers. It was here arranged that I should make a 
day's excursion, and recross the frontier, in order to visit 
the famous ruins of Ranikhet or Ranigat. This, however, 
I was told, was not a journey to be lightly undertaken. 
The Thanadar of Swabi, the officer of police, and quite 
a number of Afghan Khans, with their followers (in- 
cluding the inevitable horsemen in chain-armour), 
thought it necessary to accompany me, all armed to 
the teeth, and mounted on fine horses. The chiefs who 



362 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

went with me were Mir Ruzzun, Khan of Topi; Manir, 
Khan of Jeda ; Shah Aswur, Khan of Manir ; Sumundu, 
Khan of Maneri ; Amir, Khan of Shewa ; Husain Shah, 
the Thanadar of Swabi ; and the officer of poHce, Khan 
Bahadur Jhunota, or some such name. It was a most 
imposing retinue ; and in lieu of my solid Khiva horse, 
they mounted me on a splendid and beautiful steed, 
which Avould have been much more useful than my own 
for the purpose of running away, if that had been at all 
necessary. I could well, however, have dispensed with 
this arrangement, for by this time I had begun to suffer 
intensely from intercostal rheumatism ; I could get no 
sleep because of it, and every quick movement on horse- 
back was torture. I should like to have ridden slowly 
to Ranigat, a distance of about twelve miles from the 
Thana, as the quietest and humblest of pilgrims ; but it 
is impossible to ride slowly on a blood-horse, with half- 
a-dozen Afghan Khans prancing round you ; and how- 
ever much you wished to do so, the blood-horse would 
object, so I had to lead a sort of steeplechase, especially 
in coming back, when, my blood having got thoroughly 
heated by torture and climbing, the rheumatism left me 
for the nonce, and by taking a bee line, I easily out- 
stripped the Khans, who must have been somewhat 
exhausted by their long fast, it being the month of 
Ramadan, when good Mohammedans do not taste 
anything from sunrise to sunset. This horse I had 
must have been worth ;;^20O at least; and when I re- 
turned it to its owner, he told me that he could not 
think of taking it away from me after I had done him 
the honour of riding upon it, I accepted this offer at 
its true value, and found no difficulty in getting the 
Khan to take back his steed. I was curious enough to 
inquire at Mardan what would have been the result if I 
had accepted the offer, and was told that it would have 



THE AFGHAN BORDER. 363 

caused endless indignation, and would probably have 
led to the murdqr, not of myself, but of somebody who 
had nothing whatever to do with the affair. 

Leaving our horses at the little village of Nowigram, 
we climbed on foot for a thousand feet up the steep hill on 
which are the ruins of Ranigat. General Cunningham* 
has the merit of having identified this place with the 
Aornos of Alexander the Great. The antiquarian 
discussion on this point would hardly interest the 
general reader ; so I shall only say that no other place 
which has been suggested suits Aornos so well as 
Ranigat, though something may be said in favour, of 
General Abbott's view, that Aornos was the Mahaban 
mountain. f Rani-gat means the Queen's rock, and got 
this name from the Rani of Raja Vara. It has every 
appearance of having been a petra or " rock-fortress," 
the word applied to Aornos by Diodorus and Strabo. 
The Khans vvho were with me called Ranigat a fort, 
and any one would do so who had not a special power 
of discovering the remains of ancient monasteries. Dr 
Bellew does not seem to have visited this place ; but in 
his valuable report on the Yusufzai district,:}: he refers 
to it as one of a series of ruins, and dwells on the 
monastic features which they present. He is especially 
eloquent on the "hermit cells," which, he says, "are met 
with on the outskirts of the ruins of Ranigat;" and 
argues that the apertures sloping from them, and 
opening out on the faces of the precipices, were " for the 
purpose of raking away ashes and admitting a current 
of air upwards." Having got so far, the learned doctor 
proceeds to draw a pleasing picture of the priests issuing 
from their chambers, crossing to the gateway of the 



* See his " Ancient Geography of India, I. The Budhist Period," p. 58. 
•^ ^z& Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1854, p. 309, and 1863, 
p. 409. X Government Press. Lahore, 1864. 



364 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

temple, ascending its steps, making their obeisance to 
the assembly of the gods, offering incense, making- 
sacrifices, " and then retiring for meditation to the 
solemn and dark silence of their subterranean cells." Un- 
fortunately, however, there is, another and much more 
probable theory in regard to these subterranean cells, and 
that is that they were simply public latrines. Hence 
the sloping aperture out on the precipices. The plateau 
which forms the summit of the hill is strongly fortified 
by immensely strong buildings which run round it, and 
are composed of great blocks of hewn stone sometimes 
carefully fitted on each other, and in other places 
cemented as it were by small stones and thin slabs. 
This plateau is about 1200 feet in length by 800 in 
breadth, and is a mass of ruins. Separated from the 
external works and the "subterranean cells," the citadel 
is 500 feet long and 400 broad. A number of broken 
statues,' chiefly figures of Budha, have been found 
among these ruins, and also one statue with the Mace- 
donian cloak. The whole of this Yusufzai district is 
full of the most interesting antiquarian remains, such 
as ruins, statues, bas-reliefs, and coins, indicating the 
existence of a large population, of great cities, of arts, of 
an advanced civilisation, and of nations which have long 
since disappeared. A great part of these remains are 
Budhistic, a few have relation to Alexander the Great and 
his Greeks, and a larger number belong to the empires 
of the Graeco-Bactrians, Indo-Bactrians, and Scythians. 
In order to do justice to this subject, a fuller treatment 
of it would be necessary, but I must content myself 
with merely alluding to it. 

There is a fine wild view from Ranigat up the 
mountains of the Hindu Kush, and it is close to the 
entrance of the Umbeyla Pass, wherea iQ.\N }-ears ago 
we had some very severe fighting with the hill-men. 



THE AFGHAN BORDER. 365 

Their conduct had rendered it necessary to teach them 
a lesson, and a large British force was sent into the 
pass ; but the Afghans swarmed down upon it in large 
numbers and fought like devils. The British soldier did 
not show to his usual advantage in this campaign, and 
one regiment retreated rather ignominiously from a post 
which it ought to have held. In order to insure the 
retaking of this position, Sir Neville Chamberlain, the 
commander of the force, placed himself at the head of 
the attacking column, and, rumour has it, turned round 
and said, "There must be no running away this time," 
on whiph the colonel of one regiment replied, "The 
— th don't require to be told that. General." 

This portion of Afghanistan is scarcely even nominally 
under the sway of the Amir of Kaubul, and is virtually 
ruled by the Akoond of Swat, who is rather a spiritual 
than a temporal prince, but exercises a good deal of 
temporal power over the chiefs in his territory. He was 
ninety years old at the time of my visit to the Yusufzai, 
and had the reputation of being an extremely bigoted 
Mohammedan, not averse to stirring up 2, jeliad against 
the infidels in India ; and in this respect his son was 
said to be even worse than himself Fortunately, how- 
ever, we have a counter-check to him in the Mullah of 
Topi, within our own district, who exercises a great 
religious influence over the Afghans, and is a rival of 
the Akoond. 

I had made a good deal of acquaintance with 
Afghans before this journey, and must say a word in 
regard to their character. They are a very strange mix- 
ture of heroism and cowardice, fidelity and treachery, 
kindness and cruelty, magnanimity and meanness, high- 
sounding morality and unspeakably atrocious vicious- 
ness. Though their language affords no countenance 
to their own belief that they are sons of Israel, and the 



366 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

linguist scoffs at this supposition in his usual manner, 
I think there is something in it. In physical appear- 
ance and in character they resemble the Hebrews of 
history; and it is unscientific, in judging of the origin 
of a people, to place exclusive reliance on one par- 
ticular, such as language. Much meditation over this 
subject has also convinced me that our modern writers 
are far too much given to drawing hard and fast lines 
when treating of ethnology. They get hold of a race or 
a nation somewhere in the past, and virtually, indeed 
often unconsciously, assume that it has become stereo- 
typed for all time, leaving out of mind that circum- 
stances similar to those which form a race are continually 
modifying its peculiarities. As to the Afghans, I deem 
it likely that there is some truth in all the theories 
which have been started as to their origin. They are 
probably partly Semitic, partly Aryan, partly Asiatic, 
and partly European. There is nothing improbable in 
the supposition that their Hebrew blood has been 
mingled with that of the soldiers of Alexander the 
Great and of the Greek colonists of the Grseco-Bactrian 
kingdoms, and also 9f the Asiatic Albanians who were 
driven across Persia. The Indo-Bactrians, again, may 
have modified the race; and this theory of a com- 
posite origin affords some explanation of the incon- 
sistencies of the Afghan character. 

Afghan history is a dreadful story of cruelty, faithless- 
ness, perfidy, and treachery. Though they may under- 
stand the matter among themselves, yet it is impossible 
for the European to draw any line within which the 
Pathans may be trusted. The tomb of Cain is said to 
be in Kaubul, and the popular belief is that the devil 
fell there when he was thrown out of heaven. These are 
the views of the Afghans themselves, and a double 
portion of the spirit of Cain seems to have descended 



THE AFGHAN BORDER. 367 

upon them. In one small village through which I 
passed, there had been twelve secret assassinations 
within nine months. Among these people you have 
perpetually recurring reasons, in the shape of dead 
bodies, for putting the questions, " Who is she ? " and 
" How much was it } " for their murders proceed usually 
from quarrels as to women, or land, or cattle. A good 
many of our officers on the frontier have been assas- 
sinated, sometimes out of mere wantonness, and they 
have to go about armed or guarded. The Afghan 
monarch Shah Mahmood owed his throne to his Wuzeer 
Futteh Khan (Barukzei), and the latter was. always 
careful not to show any want of allegiance or respect 
for that soyereign ; yet Shah Mahmood, at the instiga- 
tion of a relative, had his Wuzeer seized, and put out 
both his benefactor's eyes in the year 18 18. Then he 
had the unfortunate blind man brought before him 
bound, and had him deliberately cut to pieces — nose, 
ears, lips, and then the joints. This is a characteristic 
Afghan incident, and not the less so that it was a ruinous 
act for the perpetrator. 

Sir Alexander Burnes, in his account of his journey 
to Bokhara (vol. ii. p. 124), says of the Afghans that, "if 
they themselves are to be believed, their ruling vice is 
envy, which besets even the nearest and dearest relations. 
No people are more capable of managing intrigue." And 
yet he adds, " I imbibed a very favourable impression 
of their national character." But this vice of envy is 
peculiarly the characteristic which marks off the lower 
from the higher portion of the human race ; it has, not 
inappropriately, been assigned as the cause of angels 
turning into devils ; and it is curious to find that a 
people like the Afghans, who are possessed by it, can still 
excite admiration. Mr T. P. Hughes, a well-known, 
able missionary on the border, who is intimately 



368 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

acquainted with these people, says that " the Afghans 
are a manly race, of sociable and lively habits. All 
Europeans who have come in contact with them have 
been favourably impressed with the ver}^ striking- con- 
trast exhibited by our trans-Indus subjects to the mild 
Hindu and the miserable Hindusthani and Panjabi 
.Mohammedans." He also says that their " manly 
qualities are not unequal to our own," and' that " there 
are elements of true greatness in the Afghan national 
character." Yet I was assured by more than one excel- 
lent authority that one of the most hideous of all vices 
is openly practised in Kaubul, where a bazaar or street 
is set apart for it ; and that even in Peshawar the agents 
of the Church Mission require to be cautious in their 
conduct towards the boys under their tuition. It is the 
extraordinary union of virtues and vices which forms 
the most puzzling feature in the Afghan character. To 
courage, strength, and the other better features of a wild 
sentimental mountain people, they unite vices which are 
usually attributed to the decrepitude of .corrupt civilisa- 
tions and dying races ; and though their fidelity is often 
able to overcome torture and death, it as often succumbs 
to the most trivial and meanest temptations. 

I am inclined to believe that much of the badness of 
the Afghans is owing to the influence of Mohammedan- 
ism. One might expect that so simple and intelligible 
a religion, holding the doctrine of the unity of God, and 
admitting Christ as one of its line of prophets, would be 
superior in its effects to polytheistic Hinduism, and espe- 
cially to Brahmanism, the acceptance of which after and 
in face of Budhism, involved a moral suicide on the part 
of the people of India. But certainly my knowledge of 
India does not support that conclusion. Among a 
purely Semitic race like the Arabs, secluded among 
their deserts and -at a certain stereot}'ped stage of 



THE AFGHAN BORDER. 369 

thought, Mohammedanism may be good, and it undoubt- 
edly appears to have exercised a beneficial influence 
in its removal of ancient superstitions ; but in the larger 
sphere and greater complications of modern life it be- 
comes an evil influence, fmm its essentially Pharisaical 
character and its want of power to touch the human 
heart. I need not speak of Christianity or of Budhism, 
with their enthusiasm of love and their doctrines of self- 
sacrifice : but even in Brahmanism there are humanising 
influences; and in the older Hinduism, as Dr John Muir 
has so well shown by his metrical translations, the law 
of love finds an important place. It is not even the 
worst of Mohammedanism that it is a system of exter- 
nal observances and mechanical devotion. Its central 
idea, as elaborated to-day, is that of the Creator and 
Governor of the universe as a merciless tyrant, ruling 
after the caprice of a fathomless will, breaking the clay 
of humanity into two pieces, throwing the one to the 
right saying, " These into heaven, and I care not ; " and 
the other to the left saying, " These into hell, and I care 
not." Whenever God is thus regarded as an arbitrary 
tyrant, instead of an all-loving Father whose dealings 
with His children transcend our knowledge but do not 
revolt our moral consciousness, religion, or rather that 
which takes its place, becomes a frightful instrument of 
evil: and even when the natural working of the human 
heart is too strong to allow of its being carried out prac- 
tically to its logical conclusions, on the other hand, it 
prevents our higher sympathies from being of much 
practical use. It is worthy of such a system that it 
should regard a few external observances, and the mere 
utterance of such a formula as, " There is no God but 
God, and Mohammed is His prophet," as insuring an 
entrance into heaven, and that its heaven should be one 
of purely sensual delight. I do not mean to say that 

2 A 



370 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

Mohammed is responsible for all that Mohammed- 
anism has become ; for even in this case there has been 
manifested that "curious tendency of religions to thrust 
forward and deify that which their founders began with 
repudiating and condemning ; but he is in great part re- 
sponsible, and of all famous books in the world, the 
Kuran is about the least edifying. 

Hardy, brave, mean, and wicked a people as the Af- 
ghans are, they are great lovers of poetry, and have 
produced not a little poetry of a high order. They are 
very fond, at night, round their camp-fires, of reciting 
verses, and these verses are usually of a melancholy 
kind, relating to love, war, the unsatisfactoriness of all 
earthly enjoyment, and the cruelty of fate. Captain 
H. G. Raverty has rendered a great service in presenting 
us with an almost literal translation of the productions 
of the more famous Afghan poets;* and these do not 
at all make the Afghan character more intelligible. 
When the women of a village ventured to come out to 
look at me, usually some man with a big stick drove 
them away with heavy blows, and remarks upon them 
which even a Rabelais would have hesitated to report ; 
yet the Afghans have romantic ideas of love, and are 
fond of singing these beautiful lines : — 

" Say not unto me, 'Why swearest tliou by me?' 
If I swear not by thee, by whom shall I swear? 

Thou, indeed, art the very light of mine eyes ; 
This, by those black eyes of thine, I swear! 

In this world thou art my life and my soul, 

And nought else besides ; unto thee, my life, I swear I 

rhou art in truth the all-engrossing idea of my mind, 
Every hour, every moment, by my God, I swear 1 

• *' Selections from the PoeUy of the Afghans, from the Sixteenth to 
the Nineteenth Century. Liierally translated from the original Pushtao." 
London, 1862. 



THE AFGHAN BORDER. 371 

The dust of thy feet is an ointment for the eyes — 
By this very dust beneatli thy feet I swear ! 

My heart ever yearnetli toward tlaee exceedingly — 
By this very yearning of mine unto thee I swear ! 

When thou laughest, they are nothing in comparison. 
Both rubies and pearls — by thy laugh I swear ! 

Truly I am thy lover, and thine, thine only — 
And this I, Kushhal, by thy sweet face swear !" 

Of the despairing melancholy of the Afghan poets it 
would be easy to quote many instances ; but I prefer to 
give the following example, also translated by Captain 
Raverty, by a chief of the clan Khattak, of their stirring 
war-songs : — 

" From whence hath the spring again returned unto us, 
Which hath made the country round a garden of flowers? 

There are the anemone and sweet basil, the lily, and the thyme ; 
The jasmine and white rose, the narcissus, and pomegranate blossom. 

The wild flowers of spring are manifold, and of every hue ; 
But the dark red tulip above them all predominateth. 

The maidens place nosegays of flowers in their bosoms ; 
The youths, too, fasten nosegays of them in their turbani 

Come now, maidens, apply the bow to the violin ; 
Bring out the tone and melody of every string ! 

And thou, cup-bearer, bring us full and overflowing cups, 
That I may become fraught with wine's inebriety I 

The Afghan youths have again dyed red their hands, 

Like as the falcon dyeth his talons in the blood of the cjuarry. 

They have made rosy their bright swords with gore ; 

The tulip-beds have blossomed even in the heat of summer. 

Ae-mal Khan and Dar-ya Khan — from death preserve them . — 
Were neither of them at fault when opportunity occurred. 

They dyed red the valley of Khyber with the blood of the foe ; 
On Karrapah, too, they found both war's din and tumult 



372 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

From Karrapah, even unto Bajawar, both plain and mountain, 
Time after time, as from an earthquake, qualced and shook." 

One day's march from Hoti Mardan, or Murdan, I 
was handed over to the care of an escort of the Panjab 
Guides, a famous regiment which is usually quartered 
in that fort. Its officers showed great hospitality and 
kindness, and especially Captain Hutchison, whom I 
had met at Hardwar, as also in Kashmir, and whose 
shooting expeditions had made him familiar with some 
of the remotest parts of the Himaliya and with the 
regions lying to the north of Kashmir. He had just 
returned from a journey into Gilgit, which he described 
as exceedingly barren and stony ; and his quarters in 
the fort were adorned with many trophies of the chase, 
including quite a pile of the skins of the great snow- 
bear. 

Elsewhere, I heard a story of an officer who, on get- 
ting leave after a long period of close service, went up 
and spent his leave at this little remote fort of Hoti 
Mardan, where he had formerly been stationed. That 
was adduced as a remarkable instance of English eccen- 
tricity ; but I can quite appreciate the man's choice. 
The officers of a crack regiment in an isolated position 
make very good company ; there is excellent sport of 
various kinds, including hawking, to be had at Mardan ; 
there is just enough of personal danger connected with 
a residence there to keep one lively; interesting expedi- 
tions may be made along or across the frontier; the 
whole country round is full of important antiquities; 
and the climate during great part of the year is de- 
lightful. 

According to the regimental records of temperature 
for the year 1872, the thermometer (in the open air, but 
in a position sheltered from the sun), had, in the month 
of January, an extreme range from 27° to 64°, and a 



THE AFGHAN BORDER. 373 

mean range from 46° to 52°. In February, the extreme 
range was from 32° to 'J'^°^ and the mean from 48° to 52°. 
In April, the extreme range was 53° to 91°, and the mean 
69° to 82°. The hottest month was June, when the ex- 
treme range was 70° to 109°, and the mean 92° to 100°. 
That sounds very dreadful ; but the pure and excessively 
dry air of these regions does not make a temperature of 
100° so intolerable as a temperature of 80° is in the 
moist regions of the coast, or during the rainy season, 
in those-parts of India which are much exposed to the 
influence of the south-west monsoon. Evaporation of 
moisture from the skin and clothes is the great source 
of coolness in a hot country ; and, of course, the drier 
the air is, the greater the evaporation and consequent 
coolness, while, the more the air is loaded with moisture, 
the less is the evaporation from our persons, and the 
more we become like furnaces surrounded by some non- 
heat-conducting substance. So early as September, the 
climate begins to be delightful at Hoti Mardan, the tem- 
perature for that month having an extreme range from 
57° to 98°, and a mean of from 70° to 80°. After that 
it rapidly approaches the results given for January, and 
becomes bracing as well as pleasant. 

I went out hawking with the officers one day, and we 
had some very fine sport, following the birds on horse- 
back, and being much amused by a large black vulture 
— a pirate bird — which once or twice made its appear- 
ance just when the falcon had hunted down its prey, 
and proceeded to act on the principle of sic vos non vobis, 
which appears to be one of the fundamental characteris- 
tics of organic life. Apart from its cruelty (which need 
not be expatiated on, seeing that all action we know 
of involves cruelty) the action of the falcon was very 
beautiful as it steadily pursued its prey, a species of 
crane, I think, and swooping down upon it, struck it 



374 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

again and again on the base of the skull, sending out a 
small cloud of feathers at every stroke, until the brain 
was laid open and the bird succumbed. 
' Some of the officers at Fort Mardan did not trouble 
themselves to carry arms, relying upon their sticks or 
heavy hunting-whips ; but this was unwise. Fort Michni 
was in sight, and there Major Macdonald had a stick 
when Behram Khan and the Khan's brother went up to 
him and fired into him with guns from close quarters. 
A stick becomes a satire in such circumstances. Even 
arms, however, are not always a sufficient defence from 
Afghan assassins. Lieutenant Ommaney, a promising 
young officer in civil employ, was killed in Hoti Mardan 
by a scoundrel who presented him with a petition to 
read, and then stabbed him suddenly when the English- 
man was engaged in looking over the paper. In this 
case Mr M'Nab, the acting commissioner of the district, 
on hearing of the affair at night, rode immediately over 
from Peshawar to Mardan, a distance of over thirty 
miles, and had the murderer hanged next morning — 
possibly without a very strict regard to legal forms, but 
in a summary manner, which served to put a check, for 
the time at least, upon what was threatening to become 
a too common Afghan amusement. 

The Panjab Guides is a rather peculiar regiment, be- 
ing composed half of foot soldiers and half of horsemen, 
most of whom are Afghans, and many from beyond our 
border. They are a splendid set of men, and the regi- 
ment has always been kept in an admirably effective 
state. In the Panjab Mutiny Report * it is said that at 
the outbreak of the great Indian Mutiny "the Guide 
Corps marched from Mardan six hours after it got the 
order, and was at Attok (30 miles off) next morning, 

* Lahore, 1S59 ; para. I4Q. 



THE AFGHAN BORDER. 375 

fully equipped for service, *a worthy beginning,' writes 
Colonel Edwards, of ' one of the rapidest marches ever 
made by soldiers ; for, it being necessar}' to give General 
Anson every available man to attempt the recovery of 
Delhi, the Guides were not kept for the movable column, 
but were pushed on to Delhi, a distance of 580 miles, 
or 30 regular marches, which they accomplished in 21 
marches, with only three intervening halts, and these 
made by order. After thus marching 27 miles a-day 
for three weeks, the Guides reached Delhi on 9th June, 
and three hours afterwards engaged the enemy hand to 
hand, every officer being more or less wounded.' " That 
shows the splendid state of efficiency in which the Guides 
were kept. They did something of the same kind in 
1872, or the beginning of 1873, when sent to the camp 
of exercise at Hassan Abdul, and I doubt not they 
would do it to-morrow if necessary. This regiment had 
only about half-a-dozen European officers when I saw 
it ; but then it was pretty well beyond the reach of the 
so-called philanthropic influences which have weakened 
and are destroying our position in India. The officers 
were free to rule their men ; and the consequence was, 
that the soldiers not only looked up to, but liked, and 
were proud of, their officers. I must repeat emphati- 
cally, that ability to rule wisely is the only condition on 
which we have any right to be in India at all, and that 
the instant we depart from that ground, trouble and 
disaster commence, whatever the character of that de- 
parture may be — whether it consist in having inferior 
English agents in the country or in curbing the hands 
of the capable ones — whether in stupid want of appre- 
ciation of the natives of India or in weak pandering to 
their insaner ambitions. 

Hpti MardaUj as well as the whole northern portion of 
our trans-Indus territory, is associated with the name of 



376 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

a very extraordinary man — General John Nicholson, 
who was mortally wounded at the siege of Delhi, No 
Englishman, at least of late years, appears to have left 
so powerful a personal impression upon the Afghan 
mind. I found it to be quite true that the Pathans of 
our district believe that they hear the hoofs of Nichol- 
son's horse ringing over the trans-Indus plain at night, 
and that that country shall never pass from our posses- 
sion so long as these sounds are heard. In the Institute 
at Delhi there is an oil-painting of him which was made 
after his death, partly from a small sketch and partly 
from memory. It represents him as having had a long 
head and face, with dark hair, and a very finely formed 
white forehead. In some respects it reminded me of the 
portrait of Sir Harry Vane in Ham House, and sug- 
gested more a man of contemplation than of action ; 
but that is wot an unfrequent characteristic in the coun- 
tenances of great soldiers. 

One of Nicholson's most splendid achievements was 
performed near this fort of Hoti Mardan. He was 
deputy commissioner of the district at the time of the 
outbreak of the Mutiny, when matters were in a most 
critical position, and the disaffected native soldiers were 
urged to move by the Hindusthani sepoys below, and 
were in correspondence with the Afghan and other fana- 
tics of Swat and Sitana. If the Panjab saved India, it 
was our trans-Indus district, which was the most danger- 
ous in the Panjab, and it was John Nicholson, more em- 
phatically than any one other man, who saved our trans- 
Indus possession. The place of the Panjab Guides, 
when they were despatched to Delhi, was taken by the 
55th Native Infantry and the loth Irregular Cavalry, the 
first of which threatened to murder their officers, and the 
second to " roast " the civil officer of the station. A very 
small force was sent to Mardan to deal with them, and 



THE AFGHAN BORDER. 377 

it was accompanied by Nicholson as political officer, and 
on its approach, the 55th regiment broke and took to 
the hills. It was in the end of the month of May, and 
he had been twenty hours in the saddle, under a burning 
sun, and had ridden seventy miles that day ; * but, with- 
out a moment's hesitation he "hurled himself on the 
fugitives with a handful of police sowars," and did such 
fearful execution that 150 of them were laid dead on the 
line of retreat, 150 surrendered, and the greater number 
of those who escaped op the hills were wounded. The 
moral effect of this, just when everything was hanging 
in the balance, cannot be over-estimated. The tide of 
mutiny had rolled up almost unchecked until it broke 
upon this rock. 

It has been well said that, at the outbreak of the 
Mutiny, the valley of Peshawar stood in " a ring of re- 
pressed hostilities," while beyond that lay the chronically 
hostile kingdom of Kaubul. The military forces in this 
valley consisted of 2800 Europeans and 8000 native 
soldiers of all arms ; and when the intelligence of the 
events at Delhi and Meerut reached Peshawar, most of 
the native soldiers became ripe for mutiny. It has often 
been alleged that the sepoys took no part in the atroci- 
ties of this dreadful time, and that these were committed 
only by released felons and other bad characters ; but in 
the " Panjab Mutiny Report" it is stated (para. 145) that 
at Peshawar, in May 1857, " the most rancorous and sedi- 
tious letters had been intercepted from Mohammedan 
bigots in Patna and Thaneysur, to soldiers of the 64th 
Native Infantry, revelling in the atrocities that had been 
committed in Hindusthan on the men, women, and chil- 
dren of the ' Nazarenes,' and sending them messages 



See " Panjab Mutiny Report," para. 151. 



373 THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

from their own mothers that they should emulate these 
deeds." Communications also were going on between 
the sepoys in open rebellion and their brethren across 
the frontier. It was most fortunate that at this juncture 
Sir Sydney Cotton ordered the disarmament of his native 
troops ; and there is reason to believe that Nicholson 
had great influence in leading him to do so ; but how 
did he come to do so .'' The Mutiny Report mentions 
that " this measure was determined on under the strenu- 
ous opposition of the condemned' corps ; some had ' im- 
plicit confidence ' in their regiments ; others advocated 
' conciliation.' " Of these infatuated old Indians, who have 
their counterparts at the present day, one colonel shot 
himself, when his regiment, the 99th, revolted, so much 
did he feel the disgrace. 

Peshawar is a very interesting place ; and though the 
acting commissioner, Mr M'Nab, was absent on the bor- 
der, I had met with him at Mardan, and received much 
information and great kindness from him, as well as 
from Major Ommaney, another civil officer, as also from 
Mr Hughes, of the Church Mission. Mr Ward, the 
superintendent of police, accompanied me up the Khyber 
Pass, near to Ah Musjid, the first camping-ground on 
the way to Kaubul. This is managed through the 
Afridfs, or Afreedees, of the fort of Jumrood, which 
stands on the sort of no man's land — the desolate strip 
between our territory and that of Kaubul. The Khy- 
beris are a rapacious and sanguinary lot, and it does not 
do to enter their territory without protection of some 
kind. They even annoyed Sher Ali, the ruler of Kau- 
bul, on his return from visiting Lord Mayo in 1869; and 
when I was at Peshawar the Khyber route into Afghan- 
istan was entirely closed, owing to the exactions prac- 
tised on travellers by the tribes who occupy it. More 
recently some of these people came down to Peshawar 



THE AFGHAN BORDER. 



379 



one night by stealth, and carried off into their fastnesses 
the bandmaster of an English, or perhaps a Scotch, regi- 
ment, who had fallen asleep by the roadside on his way 
from the sergeants' mess to his own quarters, and held 
him to ransom for ^700, but were finally induced to 
accept a smaller sum. 

So thirty-five of the armed Afridfs and one piper 
marched with me up the Khyber Pass, "to plunder and 
to ravish," no doubt, if there had been anything to plun- 
der. We saw some caves high above the place where 
we stopped for breakfast, but none of the natives of the 
pass appeared. We then had a shooting-match, in which 
even little boys, who carried matchlock and dagger, 
acquitted themselves very well, played our most insult- 
ing tunes in the face, or rather against the back, of the 
enemy, — and marched back again. The pass is so nar- 
row, and the mountains on both sides of it are so high 
and precipitous, that the Khyber must be a particularly 
unpleasant place to be attacked in. The entire length 
of this wonderful gorge is nearly fifty miles ; it runs 
through slate, limestone, and sandstone ; and in wet 
weather the path becomes the bed of a torrent. Near 
Ali Musjid the precipices rise from this narrow path to 
the height of 1200 feet, at an angle of about 80°. This 
wild pass is said to be able to turn out 26,000 fighting 
men, and during the Afghan war many of our troops 
perished in it. 

But I must now draw these observations to a close. 
From Peshawar there was only the long drive across the 
Panjab to Lahore, and from Lahore the railway to Bom- 
bay. This was in the end of December ; and all across 
the country of the five rivers, afar off, high above the 
golden dust haze, there gleamed the snowy summits of 
the giant mountains whose whole line I had traversed 
in their central and loftiest valle^'s. The next snow I 



38o THE ABODE OF SNOW. 

beheld was on the peak of Cretan Ida ; but I had seen 
the great abode of the gods, where — 

" Far in the east Himaltya, lifting high 
His towery summits till they cleave the sky, 
Spans the wide land from east to ■western sea, 
Lord of the Hills, instinct with Deity." 



THE END. 



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THE ABODE OF SNOW 

BY A.WILSON ESQ?' 
1875. 



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